Prep Expert SAT (2022 Review)
Table of Contents
Prep Expert is an online learning platform that has created SAT and ACT prep courses to help high school students with test prep. Prep Expert has several courses available, hosted by a range of teachers and tutors.
Prep Expert employs experienced teachers and is committed to a high quality of learning. Most students that choose to study with Prep Expert see an increase in their SAT score by at least 100 points.
Prep Expert was founded by Dr. Shaan Patel, who grew up in Las Vegas and found that there were not many SAT or ACT prep options available to students. Dr. Shaan Patel achieved great SAT and ACT scores at a Las Vegas High School and has continued to progress academically with an MBA.
Prep Expert also supports students through GRE, GMAT exams, and many more standardized tests. You may have even seen Dr. Shaan Patel or Prep Expert on Shark Tank! In 2016, Dr. Shaan Patel pitched the Prep Expert company to a team of investors, and Mark Cuban chose to invest.
Another reason for this company’s success is its steady team, committed to guiding students through their studying and test prep. You know a company is worth looking into when Mark Cuban is involved.
Course Options
Prep Expert has created SAT preparation courses and teaches these through a series of online live lessons. Each course is run by a teacher or tutor who delivers the Prep Expert material.
Many of these teachers work freelance and also teach in other learning organizations. Each teacher has a bio, where you can find out more information about them before choosing to attend their classes.
The cost of Prep Expert SAT courses varies from $499 to $999, but by using our Prep Expert SAT discounts or Shark Tank discount codes, you can save $100. The main difference between these packages is the price and course length, as the learning materials and lessons are the same in each course.
As these courses come with scheduled lessons, make sure you will be available to attend every online lesson to get the most from your learning – and money!
6 Week Flagship
The 6-week Flagship Course is the main course offered by Prep Expert, and it’s also the most popular with students. This course is set with a schedule across 6 weeks and features regular sessions. When you are choosing your program, you can select dates and times to suit you. Most courses will have two sessions per week, which are each 3 hours in length.
In total, this course has 60 hours of live online lessons that are taught by an expert instructor. Furthermore, each week has a scheduled practice test for you to complete, which means you’ll finish 6 practice tests in this course!
Furthermore, the SAT prep course comes with a 200 point improvement guarantee to help you reach that perfect score! This 6-week course is priced at $999, which works out to be around $12 per hour for the online lessons.
Compared to private tutoring, this is a great price per hour, and you’re also getting a set learning plan that works. When you enroll in this course, you’ll get to choose the schedule that works best for you. This is a demanding course, so make sure you have the time commitment needed to complete your studies.
3 Week Fast Track
Prep Expert offers a 3-week fast track course, which is even more intense than the one above. This program is designed for students who have less than one month to study before their SAT. It’s also perfect for students who would like a refresher or last-minute course.
This course comes with a 100 points score improvement guarantee. Although it covers the same learning as the longer course, some find it more difficult to absorb all the information and get their test scores up. This is due to the intensity and fast pace of this prep program.
The 3-week course has all the same elements – over 60 hours of live online lessons, 6 practice exams to complete, and a high-quality tutor. This is why the cost is the same at $999. The sessions take place 4 times per week and are each 3 hours long. You also have 3 hours per week to complete your practice test.
In total, that’s 15 hours per week spent on studying. You may also want to do additional practice outside of this. Needless to say, you need to choose a study schedule that fits around your school life, home life, and work to complete this SAT preparation course correctly.
Weekend Review
For those students that need to study right before an exam or are tight on time, Prep Expert offers a weekend review course. This prep course is intense, requiring two full days of online study. The course takes place over a weekend and has 6 hours of study each day.
The cost is lower than other courses at $499. However, take into account that it doesn’t have any practice exams. Furthermore, there are only 12 hours of lessons, whereas other courses have 60 hours of lessons. Per hour, this program is almost double the cost. Most students will study for 3-6 months before the SAT test, so we only recommend this way of learning if you are desperately looking to cram in some extra studying before the test.
Self Paced
If you prefer to learn at your own pace, PrepExpert has created a Self-Paced course. With this course, you’ll have access to 30 hours of video lessons for the whole year (12 months). These videos are delivered by Dr. Shaan Patel, the founder of Prep Expert, so you know you can trust this SAT class prep.
The cost of this course is $499, which is good value for a year of access. However, most students will get through this self-paced course content in 3 months. Prep Expert has not specified if this course includes practice questions or tests, which can be a disadvantage to pupils that are studying without a teacher’s support.
Compared to other self-paced courses, this option from Prep Expert seems a bit passive and lacking in interaction. Many other courses have thousands of practice questions, with text or video explanations, and at least 3 practice tests provided. If self-paced is the way you learn best, we recommend choosing a different learning provider.
Expert Teachers
At Prep Expert, there is a wide range of experienced teachers hosting every learning course, each with different school educations, experiences, and interests. You can view the bios for each tutor on the Prep Expert website, which can help with your decision on which course to join. Teachers are also rated as Platinium, Gold, and Silver, which categorizes their experience and teaching level.
Being able to choose your teacher is another advantage of using Prep Expert. It’s an opportunity that you may not get with other online courses. By finding a tutor that you share interests or school history with, you may be more engaged with the learning, making it easier to get that perfect score.
Private Tutoring
The tutors at Prep Expert will often teach with other learning platforms as well and can offer private tutoring. Tutoring through Prep Expert is available in a few packages, the cheapest being 4 hours for $1,199, which is around $300 per hour. When we compare this cost to other learning providers like The Princeton Review or Manhattan Prep, this is a very expensive offer – nearly double the cost in some cases.
Private tutoring is a great option if you want additional support on specific SAT prep areas. You may find that teachers at school are too busy to give you additional help, which is where a private tutor can be really useful. For example, you may be performing well in the reading section of the test but struggling with Math, which can bring down your overall SAT score.
Through private tutoring, you can get specialist help on understanding concepts and answering strategies, above and beyond the lesson content. To make the best use of your time with a tutor, plan the things you need help on, and stick to those topics. At $300 an hour, you don’t want to be wasting time.
Cons
So far, we’ve brought you the key features and pros of SAT prep with Prep Expert. Now it’s time to look at the negative elements of this course, as we do with all our review articles. On the surface, Prep Expert offers a good range of courses with high-quality teaching staff.
However, when we look further into the course content, of which there is limited information, it becomes apparent that the course content and resources may not be as comprehensive as other learning platforms.
Firstly, depending on which course you choose, you may not have access to any practice tests. Practice problems and tests are only included in the 3-week and 6-week courses, so if you choose self-study or the weekend review, you won’t see any practice tests.
It is also unclear if the practice tests are official SAT papers or tests collated by Prep Expert. Completing practice tests gives students an opportunity to experience the test for themselves, and understand how questions are phrased and how to answer questions. Practice tests also help pupils understand their own performance, including their strengths and weaknesses. By not providing this opportunity, Prep Expert puts their students at a disadvantage to others, which could impact their SAT score.
If you are the type of student who gets nervous before an exam or likes to have a clear idea of what the test will be like, we recommend choosing a different learning provider that offers practice tests.
Secondly, Prep Expert has a limited amount of resources for students outside of the live online sessions. They do not seem to offer bitesize videos, quizzes, or physical textbooks.
This is against the norm, as many other learning platforms will have a wide range of resources that students can work through outside of lessons. This can be quite limiting for some people, and completing live online lessons in isolation from other learning may not fit your learning style.
Finally, the resources attached to a course are only available to you for the length of time of your course. For example, if you choose to enroll in the 3-week course, you’ll only be able to access the resources for 3 weeks.
If we compare this to The Princeton Review – who offer a 1-month course of live online sessions alongside a full year of access to their resources – this is quite a poor offering from Prep Expert. If you are a busy student and need to work and study on the go, you may find this quite limiting and not justifiable against the cost.
If you’re still reading and thinking about choosing a different learning provider, take a look at our Best SAT Prep Courses article for more information on the top courses. This should help you find a course that is right for your schedule, learning style, and budget.
