The test preparation be- hind the College Board’s SAT is notorious for involving pricey tutoring sessions and prep books from a variety of companies. According to the Washington Post, average private tutoring in the Wash- ington area costs $2,399 for 12 hours at Kaplan Test Prep while The Princeton Review charges $1,500 for 12 hours.

Other factors that account for the disparity in scores is how higher income parents are able to place their children into af uent school systems, afford more preparation book- lets from reputable companies, and take the PSAT or SAT more than once for score im- provement. The College Board requires test-takers to pay a $47 fee for the SAT and $57 to include the optional essay. Al- though there are waivers avail- able, all low-income students may not qualify.

College Board data on the SAT for 2015 found that “students whose family in- comes were above $200,000 received an average score of 1720 … out of the possible 2400” while “students whose families made $20,000 or less scored an average of 1314.” Since the SAT does not cover speci c material learned in the classroom,thisforcesfamilies to pay for extra instruction and tips from experts.

David Coleman, College Board President, told USA Today that the company aims at making an “admissions as- sessment that makes it clear that the road to success is not last-minute tricks or cramming but the challenging learning students do every day.”

The 2016 remodel of the SAT made the essay section optional, re ects more vo- cabulary utilized in college classrooms rather than obscure words that lower-income envi- ronments may not have access to, and gives fee waivers to send scores to four colleges.

The non-pro t educational organization, Khan Academy, partnered with the College Board to provide free SAT preparation online. Lower in- come families will bene t as it offers four full-length practice tests, thousands of problems, and over 150 instructional vid- eos. Sherwood offers a one-se- mester College Test Prep class, taught by English teacher Beth Petralia. She begins the course by researching colleges with students and then exposing them to in-depth practice on each SAT section provided by Khan Academy.

However, online material and full classes are not equal to the luxury of being in a face- to-face tutoring session with an expert, and higher income families still gain more ac- cess to live feedback, tips, and tricks for the exam.