Prep Expert SAT Review 2024 – Is it worth the money?

Prep Expert, formerly known as 2400 Expert, was developed by SAT perfect-scorer Shaan Patel to help students raise their SAT scores and master key test-taking strategies. Patel developed the course in 2011, a flagship course that took place over six weeks

and helps students raise their scores by an average of 200 points. Featured on the popular series Shark Tank in January 2016, Patel won a $250,000 investment from billionaire Mark Cuban to turn his test prep model into an online learning hub.

Now, Prep Expert and the Kranse Institute have partnered to offer this SAT prep course online, through an innovative new app, live online virtual courses, and in-person classroom courses. Patel hopes to help millions of students taking the SAT to improve their scores, so they have a better chance of being accepted into the universities of their dreams.

Bootcamp Style Course
Prep Expert SAT
8/10Our Score
  • Best Value for money SAT prep program.
    1,750+ practice questions with both text and video explanations.
  • Realistic questions in practice problems.
  • Both Personalized Tutoring and On-Demand Course options.
  • A good way to get feedback on your Essay.
    200+ video lessons.
  • A limited number of practice tests ( 3 full-length practice tests).

Self-Paced SAT Video Course

The standout feature of the Prep Expert SAT course lies in the 100+ SAT strategies developed and instructed by its founder, Dr. Patel. These strategies enabled Dr. Patel to elevate his SAT scores from average to perfect. Over the years, as he coached thousands of students for the SAT, these tactics have been honed and proven to maintain their effectiveness in the face of the continually evolving SAT exam.

The program features 147 lessons that cover over 100 proven test-taking strategies specially developed by Shaan Patel to help students reach their maximum potential scores on the SAT. There are also 30 hours of video lectures in which students can pause, rewind, and fast forward according to their own learning needs and abilities. The videos are cut into 10-minute segments to make them easy to digest and remember.

The total course hours are over 60 hours, and they can be taken at any time of day from any device. The videos are in small segments, and the course comes with plenty of practice tests and questions so that students can learn how to take the test successfully. It even features printable test questions to help students who are written-memory learners.

This Self-Paced Video SAT course features a score improvement guarantee. If you don’t improve on your next SAT, Prep Expert will refund 100% of your money.

Sample Study Strategy from Prep Expert
                                                                                 Sample Study Strategy from Prep Expert
Sample Study Strategy from Prep Expert 2
                                                                        Sample Study Strategy from Prep Expert 2

Video Lessons

The Self-Paced course offers around 30 hours of video content, encompassing all SAT sections. Video lessons employ a slide-based format and are usually shorter than 15 minutes. Dr. Patel himself teaches these lessons, delivering content in an engaging manner.

Prep Expert excels in introducing and consistently reinforcing SAT-specific test-taking strategies throughout its curriculum. The primary strategies taught adopt a bottom-up solution approach, which we found to be highly time-efficient when applied correctly to the SAT’s multiple-choice questions.

Participants in the Six-Week or Eight-Week courses adhere to a rigorous SAT preparation plan, attending online sessions with an instructor twice a week for three hours each and completing homework assignments between live classes. In addition, students take a full-length SAT practice exam weekly, dedicating four hours to the task.

SAT Math Explanation by Prep Expert
                                                                                                   SAT Math Explanation by Prep Expert

The lessons focus on important strategies and shortcuts to achieving better scores on the test, rather than expecting students to rely on rote memorization skills. For many students with learning disabilities, the inability to memorize many things has long put them at a disadvantage when they take the SAT. The SAT Prep Expert course helps take away that memorization anxiety and gives students real skills to show off what they already understand in math, vocabulary, and writing.

SAT Writing practice explanation
                                                                                                                     SAT Writing practice explanation

Practice Tests

Prep Expert relies exclusively on official SAT sources for its practice questions, ensuring the utmost relevance. The course platform includes five homework tests and six full-length practice tests, accompanied by a suggested schedule for completing the practice problem sets within these tests.

Practice questions and tests on the Prep Expert platform are not presented interactively. Instead, they are available as downloadable PDFs, which students should complete using pencil and paper. Afterward, they can input the answers on the platform for grading.

An impressive feature offered by Prep Expert is the video answer solutions for all practice questions included in the six referenced SAT practice tests. However, for homework assignments, Prep Expert only supplies an answer key without detailed explanations for each answer.

SAT Practice Tests
                                                                                                                                   SAT Practice Tests

Office hours

Students enrolled in any of Prep Expert’s SAT packages gain access to weekly live office hours conducted via Zoom, typically held every Friday from 3 to 5 PM Pacific Standard Time by a top 1% SAT instructor. During these 2-hour sessions, two parallel meetings take place, one focused on SAT Math and the other on SAT Reading and Writing sections. These live office hours enable students to receive real-time assistance with SAT homework or practice test questions found on the platform.

However, Prep Expert does not offer on-demand instructor support. Thus, students using the Self-Paced SAT package may need to wait several days for the opportunity to have their questions addressed live.

Course Offerings

Prep Expert offers several options for students to prep for the SAT, according to their schedules and needs. There are in-person and live online course instruction from tutors who are experts in taking and excelling on the SAT, scoring in the 99th percentile themselves. There are also self-directed video instruction courses that students can access from anywhere on their computers or smart devices. There are currently five different course offerings:

  • 6-Week Flagship
  • 8-Week Capstone
  • Self-Paced Video
  • Weekend Review
  • Unlimited Prep
  • 4 Week PSAT

In-person classes are currently offered in six cities across the country:

  • Washington, D.C.
  • San Jose, California
  • Orange County, California
  • Jersey City, New Jersey
  • Princeton, New Jersey
  • Las Vegas, Nevada

 

The 6-Week Flagship Course

Prep Expert offers a 200-point score increase guarantee or a full refund for their Six-Week Flagship and Eight-Week Capstone SAT courses. To be eligible for this guarantee, students must attend all live classes, finish all homework assignments, and take every practice test. If a student’s SAT score does not increase by a minimum of 200 points compared to a prior official SAT score, they can apply for a complete refund.

The 6-Week Flagship course can be attended in-person or online. The course is 72 hours long and meets for 3 hours twice a week, plus once for 4 hours for a proctored SAT practice exam. By the end of this course, students will have taken and received feedback on six practice SAT exams, helping them to hone the skills they need to improve on to bring their scores up on the next SAT.

Additionally, this course helps students become more comfortable with the format of the test, lowering test-taking anxieties, and building confidence in all kinds of student learners.

The 8-Week Capstone Course

By Perfect Score SAT Instructor Clay Cooper

In this course, classes are designed to help students get to the next level: the 99th percentile. Lessons focus on strategies to solve the most difficult SAT concepts. Students in this class benefit from Mr. Cooper’s unparalleled experience taking and teaching the SAT.Simply put, there is not a more advanced SAT course available online than Prep Expert’s Capstone Course with Master Instructor Clay Cooper. If you’re serious about the 99th percentile or a perfect score, this course is the answer.

Weekend Review

The Weekend Review course is the perfect refresher and review course for students about to take their SAT exam. These reviews are scheduled for the weekend before the next SAT and are 12 hours long. They are conducted in live online classrooms and spread out throughout Saturday and Sunday from 9 am – 3 pm each day. The course includes a 30-minute lunch break. Students take practice tests at home and get to exercise the skills they’ve learned one last time before taking the SAT.

Private Tutors

Prep Expert also offers live online tutoring from the best SAT tutors in the industry. These tutors have all scored in the 99th percentile on the SAT and ACT, and they are skilled in the 100 strategies of Shaan Patel’s Prep Expert system. They are carefully selected to deliver the material in a fun and engaging way and have been personally trained by Shaan Patel. The packages range from 4 hours up to 48 hours of tutoring. They aren’t cheap, but for many students, the one-on-one approach of preparing for the SAT may be extremely beneficial.

ACT, AP, and SAT II Tutoring

Prep Expert has taken their proven test-taking strategies and developed courses for other standardized tests, including the ACT, all AP subjects, and the SAT II. The ACT prep courses are offered either live online or in-person in Las Vegas, Nevada. The AP and SAT II tutoring is available live online through private tutoring sessions.

Prep Expert Coupon, Promo & Discount Code

$300 Off
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Who Should Buy Prep Expert?

Prep Expert’s SAT course is a strong option for students seeking to learn and master SAT-specific test-taking strategies from an instructor with a perfect SAT score. The live classes in the Six-Week Flagship and Eight-Week Capstone SAT courses deliver a comprehensive and rigorous learning experience, well-suited for students who thrive in structured environments.

Prep Expert offers a variety of ways for students to get engaged in the SAT prep materials and actively work toward increasing their scores. Because it employs tutors and instructors who are paid more than anywhere else in the SAT prep industry, and those instructors have scored in the 99th percentile themselves, the learning experience is superior to some other test-prep services.

However, with on-demand course, the absence of live instructor support, limited interactivity in the practice materials  might not be the ideal fit for students who prefer a more responsive and personalized learning experience.

In summary, Prep Expert’s SAT course is a worthwhile investment for students aiming to substantially boost their scores through proven SAT strategies and a well-organized learning schedule.

Bootcamp Style Course
Prep Expert SAT
8/10Our Score
  • Best Value for money SAT prep program.
    1,750+ practice questions with both text and video explanations.
  • Realistic questions in practice problems.
  • Both Personalized Tutoring and On-Demand Course options.
  • A good way to get feedback on your Essay.
    200+ video lessons.
  • A limited number of practice tests ( 3 full-length practice tests).

Prep Expert SAT’s Official website

 

Additional Info

Shaan Patel’s Journey to SAT Prep Expert

Shaan Patel’s journey began in Las Vegas, Nevada, where his family emigrated from India and bought a budget motel. Patel attended one of the lowest-performing school districts in the United States at Clark High School, and he knew that he needed his SAT scores to stand out from those of his peers to get noticed by his top-pick schools. He took the SAT the first time and earned just an average score; Patel knew he had to get better.

He took all his SAT materials and sat down to organize them into test-taking strategies, which he then began to master. He dissected the test and prep materials and began to build them into a comprehensive SAT preparation guide. When Patel retook the SAT, he raised his score by 640 points to a perfect 2400: something only achieved by 3,000 of the millions of students to take the test from 2005 to 2016.

Not only did Patel receive a full ride to the University of Southern California to pursue his degree in medicine, but he also received over $500,000 in scholarship offers because of his perfect 2400 score. He was also accepted into the MBA program at Yale University. While interviews, grades, and college essays are also important pieces of the college admissions process, scoring well on the SAT or ACT can bring in significant amounts of scholarship offers for students.

Patel knew that his method worked, and he wrote a manuscript for an SAT prep book which he shopped around to different publishing companies. After being turned down over 100 times, he decided to develop his own 6-week flagship SAT course called 2400 Expert.

2400 Expert’s success became so well-known, mostly because students were raising their SAT scores by an average of 376 points. Textbook publisher McGraw-Hill approached Patel, and he subsequently wrote and published his most well-known and well-received book called SAT 2400 in Just 7 Steps.

From there, Patel’s courses continued to develop and grow in their popularity, and he knew that this method could help thousands of other students improve their scores as well. In January 2016, Patel appeared on the popular TV series Shark Tank, where he pitched his idea of developing an online, national version of his successful classroom sessions to the Shark investors. Mark Cuban accepted Patel’s offer of investing $250,000 into the company, gaining himself 20% ownership.

 

Review Summary

3.8
3.8 out of 5 stars (based on 6 reviews)
Excellent50%
Very good17%
Average0%
Poor33%
Terrible0%

User Reviews

Bit early but I like it

May 19, 2024

I’ve just begun a 3-week online class, which includes 2 practice tests and four 3-hour sessions weekly. I needed a push to get motivated to study, as my score was somewhere around the lower to middle range. So far, I have liked it. I’ll post another update once I get my final score.

Smith

Recommended

May 16, 2024

I’ve recently completed the in-person class.

I found the strategies they teach quite impactful and beneficial. Particularly, the techniques for selecting the best option when you’re torn between two choices began to reflect positively on my scores after I practiced them.

My singular gripe with the course lies with the essay grading. The essay graders employed by the company don’t seem to assess the work very precisely.

Yet, if you’re diligent with the homework and meticulously analyze your errors, their 200-point/99th percentile guarantee, which I believe is roughly a 1450 score will prove valid.

I hope my feedback is useful!

Charlotte

Not a good fit for me

May 9, 2024

The class was a terrible fit for me. It’s tailored more towards students with low-to-middle scores. As someone aiming for the higher score bracket, I found the tips provided virtually useless. I was looking for guidance on key strategies like what to underline, identifying main ideas, and adopting the test maker’s perspective. Given the cost, it’s simply not worth it. Moreover, the 10 advertised practice tests are somewhat misleading; they include 6 previously released tests and only 4 original ones.

Mike

Recommended

April 28, 2024

I’ve nearly finished the online class and didn’t get much from it. Here’s a quick summary:

Pros:

They provide essay grading.

Some effective strategies, but many are found in popular SAT books.

Good for vocabulary building.

Plenty of practice questions.

Positive student community.

Cons:

Lengthy sessions (3 hours, twice a week) often cover familiar material.

Homework tests may not be unique.

Costly ($500 with discount), with self-study seeming more efficient.

Easy to slack with no consequences, leading to disengagement.

Consider it if you need help across multiple SAT areas or prefer a classroom environment. My TA, Mike, had a particularly helpful teaching style. Good luck!

Alex

Outperform options like Kaplan and Princeton Review

April 25, 2024

The program is pretty average, though it does outperform options like Kaplan and Princeton Review. So,if you have to pick among these 3, go for Prep Expert.

It falls short on some aspects because it’s built on a common yet flawed belief in education: proficiency in a subject automatically equates to teaching it well. That’s hardly a third of what makes someone a competent educator.

For most students, hiring a private tutor will likely be a superior choice, and it can often cost less than a preset course from a big company. Broad, one-size-fits-all programs tend to work reasonably well if you’re scoring around the 1100 mark or mid-20s for the ACT. However, if you’re scoring significantly below or above this range, these programs might not only be of little help but could also hinder progress, especially for those already achieving high scores.

Lewis

Faced issue with refund

April 20, 2024

Refund Denied. Be cautious about signing up if you anticipate the possibility of a refund. Despite adhering to their policies and proactively reaching out to PrepExperts with inquiries, our request for a refund was rejected based on reasons that seem arbitrary. The course didn’t deliver the promised help for my son, and they refused to issue a refund. Be warned!

Peter

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