How to Choose an SAT Tutor – Part 1

Whether your son or daughter is shooting for a perfect SAT score, happy to break a 1700, or somewhere in between, you want to choose a tutor who can help her to break through to the next level and reach her potential.

Since junior and senior year of high school are a busy time, you also want a tutor who can craft an approach that will be easiest for your particular child and most conducive to learning without stress. There’s work involved, of course, but the right SAT tutor should increase her confidence, calm her fears, inspire and motivate her, help her to focus, and take an approach to tutoring that’s tailored to her particular strengths and weakness and works best for her personally.

To get a good SAT score, it’s not just “what you know” that counts

A skilled tutor knows that taking the SAT is similar to activities like sports and theater; there are many factors that affect someone’s performance. It’s not always what a student knows or how talented he is that makes the difference. If you want your child to perform at his best in a super stressful, make or break test taking situation, you have to choose a tutor who can help him prepare mentally and emotionally, not just academically, for the test.

The right SAT tutor will help your child learn exactly what’s going to be on the test and how to approach it. As importantly, the right tutor will help him learn the mentality to have while taking the test and the mentality to have while studying. That’s the combination that results in a greatly improved score.

It’s relatively easy to find a tutor who understands the material that’s tested on the SAT and the problem solving methods. It’s hard to find a tutor who understands his students.

In “How to Choose an SAT Tutor – Part 2” we’ll look at some key questions to ask, and some answers to look for, to help you make this very important decision.