How to Measure SAT Score Performance

I have seen a lot of advertisements posted by test prep providers touting the scores that their students have purported got.  I am sure you may have seen many of these ads also.  But what is a good measure of SAT scores?  Is it the absolute scores like 1560 or 1580 as they advertised?  Or do we have something else that we can use to measure whether our children have scored the highest score that they can at that moment.

I think by providing the absolute scores, most of these ads are, at least, misguided or even worse, intended to misinform.  We never know who these students are and whether they have really attained that score.  Furthermore, nobody is going to investigate to look up these students to find out whether this is false advertising or not.  However, if our children do not attain the advertised scores, does it mean they have failed?  Or are the ads telling us that everybody can achieve these scores if they enroll with them? If so, then every student who enrolls with them will be able to get into Harvard, Stanford, or MIT?  Anyone who has a clear mind will not be fooled.

Absolute score is not a meaningful way to measure how our children has performed.  In fact, I use another metric to measure student’s success: score improvement.  Measuring score improvement is very easy.  We just need to note down what score they have achieved when the come in, whether it is from an official SAT test or one of the various official practice tests.  That would be considered their baseline score.  After that, they undergo lessons and can get tested periodically every few months or so, and then we can measure the improvements that they have achieved, again, whether in official SAT tests or practice tests.  The we can look at the hours of lessons that they have gone through and we can see their improvements over time.  I have compiled a few examples of my students for comparison purposes:

Name	Score Range	Improvement	Hours of Tuition
C.F.	1180 – 1450	270 points	26 hours
A.T.	1190 - 1450	260 points	30 hours
C. Fong	1120 – 1420	300 points	28 hours
C. Yuen	1490 – 1590	100 points	16 hours

The first 3 students are more typical of the students that I have had.  These are above average students.  They are not performing up to their potential because they are only getting average scores of around 1100.  They are all self-disciplined and willing to put in the work to get the scores that they deserve.  As a result, they are able to improve their scores by close to 300 points.  This is what I call success stories and I am proud of their achievements.

The fourth student, however, is not your typical student.  When he came in, he has already scored 1490 in his previous SAT test. He wanted to improve his score to 1500+.  I found that his fundamentals are quite strong, so I only need to tweak on his techniques and drill him on test strategies.  He scored 1590 as a result and he never needs to come back to me again.  Another success story.  Of course, with more tuition hours, they can improve their scores even further.  But they have already achieved their goals.

To summarize, your score improvement depends on what score you are at right now.  The table above shows approximately what kind of score you can achieve within the hours of tuition.  These are real cases that are exemplary of my students. I think anyone who has average ability and willing to put in the effort to learn and practice can achieve these results.