This. I’m a college freshman and took the SAT and PSAT when in high school. I’m also not a minority. While I and my parents could have afforded the expensive prep courses the students around me were taking , I decided to skip these and focus purely on solo prep. Across the PSAT and SAT, I spent a total of $50 for my prep–a $35 dollar, thick book of SAT problems, and a $15 PSAT prep book. Technically, you don’t even need to buy these books—many libraries offer the books to borrow for free.
Just going through those books and drilling incessantly on weekends and in my free time was enough to get me a 1520 on the PSAT (the max score, which helped in gaining merit scholarships, which is the reason I go to school for free right now), and a 1540 on the SAT (99th percentile). I also used Khan Academy extensively, which provides free prep sponsored by Collegeboard.
In my opinion, prep courses are just a means for unmotivated students to put in the same amount of work as a highly diligent, self-studying student. There’s plenty of free and relatively inexpensive resort resources out there nowadays, it just requires time and attention (which sadly a lot of my generation doesn’t have).
No one even told us at my school that the PSAT would count for national merit scholarships, which ended up saving me $20,000 on university tuition over four years.
Just going through those books and drilling incessantly on weekends and in my free time was enough to get me a 1520 on the PSAT (the max score, which helped in gaining merit scholarships, which is the reason I go to school for free right now), and a 1540 on the SAT (99th percentile). I also used Khan Academy extensively, which provides free prep sponsored by Collegeboard.
In my opinion, prep courses are just a means for unmotivated students to put in the same amount of work as a highly diligent, self-studying student. There’s plenty of free and relatively inexpensive resort resources out there nowadays, it just requires time and attention (which sadly a lot of my generation doesn’t have).