Taking the SAT exam has become a rite of passage for more than 1 million college-bound American high school students each year, a number that has steadily increased since the SAT was first administered by the nonprofit College Board in 1926.
Not surprisingly, demand for SAT test preparation services has grown in tandem, fueled by the competitive nature of college admissions and the ability to take the SAT repeatedly to try for a better score. Also, the number of college students rose 15 percent in the decade ending in 2003, while the number of students taking the SAT grew 35 percent, to almost 1.5 million this year--the 15th consecutive year of growth.
The market for test preparation services in general, not just for the SAT, has ballooned to more than $4 billion, according to Eduventures Inc., a Boston-based market research firm. In addition, Internet-delivered test preparation products are among the newest form of test prep to emerge in recent years, representing a growing slice of the market estimated at $50 million, according to Eduventures.
Due to the expanding test preparation services market and the increasing role the Internet is playing in delivering these services to students and families, Consumer Reports WebWatch spent five weeks in the summer of 2005 examining 10 Web sites providing online SAT test-prep services. WebWatch wanted to learn how the market's largest, best-known and, often, most expensive options--such as services from Kaplan and The Princeton Review--fared against smaller, lesser-known services, such as the free site Number2.com.
The 10 services evaluated were: Barron?s Test Prep, Boston Test Prep, Kaplan's SAT Online Prep, Number2.com, Peterson's SAT Online Course, PrepMe, SAT Secrets, Test Preparation Program, The Official SAT Online Course, and The Princeton Review.
While testers deemed seven of the 10 sites generally effective in their product delivery and the overall quality of their services, WebWatch noted some troubling trends, particularly regarding the blending of advertising and educational content and aggressive marketing of promotional materials to college-bound students.
In addition, testers found typos and grammatical errors on some sites, prompting concern about the inconsistent quality of purchased online materials. These discoveries not only chipped away at the perceived credibility of online products designed to help students excel on a scholastic aptitude test, but also prompted questions regarding the credentials of those providing--and charging for--these services.
Overall, however, the testers appear to have benefited from the process of spending hours on these test preparation sites. The 20 high school juniors who served as testers took the SAT for the second time in the fall of 2005, after participating in this study, and saw their test scores improve by an average of 38 points per student--a 1.6% gain.
