Or, all the money that went to College Board / ETS and GMAC over the years.
As a veteran standardized-test-taker who have recently (and happily) said goodbye to standardized tests, I’ve decided to take reader S’s suggestion and tally up all the money that went into this little 1-person enterprise of standardized test-taking.
The numbers will be an approximation (to the best of my memory + googling) for the tests I took in high school.
- 10th grade: PSAT:
Cost to take: $10-$14 (?) - 10th-12th grade: Advanced Placement Tests (5 total)
Cost to take: $135 each = $675 total - 11th grade: SAT I (taken twice – I might be showing my age, but when I took it the full score was 1600, not 2400)
Cost to take: $25 each = $50 total
Cost to send top score to colleges (12 colleges) = $8 each = $96 total
Test-Prep: $0 – my high-school counselor somehow got me into a class that a prep organization was doing as a pro-bono project. - 11th grade: SAT II (3 tests, each taken twice)
Cost to take: $25 each = $150 total
Cost to send 3 top scores to schools: $8 each = $18 total
Test Prep: $500-$1,000? I was sent to tutoring every day after school for a couple of months. - Post-college: GMAT (taken twice)
Cost to take: $250 each = $500 total
Test Prep: ~$1,800 – this includes a formal 9 week prep class and a couple of additional workshops.
Adding up all the numbers… comes to out to around $4,000. Just on testing and test-prep alone.
There are some people who are innately good at standardized tests. They study for two weeks and get a 99.999th percentile on the first try. They are the ones who get 780s on GMATs and 176s on LSATs. (Yes, I know people like them. I try not to hate too much. 😉 ).
Then there are people who really struggle with standardized testing in general – they may be very smart individuals who are just not good at these types of tests.
I think I fall somewhere in the middle – I usually score better than median on the diagnostic just as a benefit of the education I have received to date (and as an avid reader my verbal skills tends to rank fairly high off the bat), but I definitely need to study over a consistent period of time to get a good score.
That’s where test preparation (and the financial resources it required) has helped me a great deal.
Well Heeled Blog 
I’m one of those people who you hate–I think that standardized testing is fun! I took a total of two PSATs, seven AP tests, the SAT I once in high school and twice in middle school, and at least 10 or so SAT IIs and did well on pretty much all of them, very very well on some. I don’t think I studied for any of those, at all (other than your typical class-prep for the AP tests). I took a LSAT diagnostic a few years ago, though, and only scored in the 90% cold so I’d have to prep to do well on that. I still thought that the test was fun, though.
It’s too depressing to think about how much money/time I’ve spent being tested. Even though in Canada we don’t have to do the SAT, I’ve done the GRE, EPPP and a jurisprudence exam for my regulatory body. Just those three (and the test materials to go with them) cost a small fortune. Thankfully I’m free of them forever!!
How do you remember the costs of your exams? I think I remember the AP tests being $125 or so, but considering if you place out you don’t have to take the college courses, 125 is totally worth it. I have no idea how much PSATs or SATs cost. My parents paid for that.
I’m glad you’re finished with your test. Congrats!
Oh man, I didn’t even know the full score was 2400 nowadays. And I have always thought standardized tests were unnecessarily expensive. As is the test-prep that goes with it. I mean isn’t that rather classist? Just a thought.
Hmm – I agree that standardized testing can get expensive (especially for pre-professional programs such as law or business school).
As for classist – I don’t know. Test preparation has absolutely helped me (and probably many others) get a better score, and money definitely buys access to better education and preparation – but that’s by no means limited to standardized testing.
For example, a middle-class or upper-class family will be the ones who can afford to live in a good school district or afford to send their kids to a private school. Their kids will be more likely to receive admissions into the top colleges. What’s the difference between spending $$ on SAT tutors vs. spending $$ to live in a better school district? How about parents that send $5,000 to send their kid to an archeological dig in Egypt and the kid write a brilliant essay on her experience and get into Harvard – is that classist?
In my view, if test preparation is “classist”, then everything education and opportunity-related is in a sense “classist”. I mean, there’s no denying the benefits that come from growing up in a middle or upper-middle class family.
Well, I generally think most things in education are classist. I always thought (and perhaps I’m wrong) but public schools exist to bring a more level playing field to our education system, though I don’t believe it has actually worked out that way. I actually grew up in Houston where they have magnet programs to even out diversity in the schools and I think in some ways it helps but in the long run the system has failed. But this is all probably too big to be discussed as just standardized tests, I mean it’s the whole educational system from grade school through graduate school. Though I do think it’s a bit more fair after you get through undergrad because you can apply for waivers if you don’t make earn enough for all the tests/apps to get into grad school.
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I am one of those people who is really good at standardized testing. It is one of the few things I am better at than my sister (who is now getting a PhD in engineering, the smartypants!), so I cling to it.
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$4000 for just one person – that’s quite a bit of a money-making machine considering how many students take (and retake) standardized tests.
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