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We've spent weeks using the new Digital SAT prep courses from Prep Expert and PrepScholar to bring you our best recommendation.
And ultimately help your student achieve their target SAT score goals.
PrepScholar vs Prep Expert SAT Overview
Both the Prep Expert and PrepScholar Digital SAT platforms offers Digital SAT prep in the same three modes.
Which are self-paced. live classes, and private tutoring, where each mode offers varying levels of instructor interaction..
Who should buy the PrepScholar SAT course?
- Students looking for user-adaptive SAT prep lessons and quizzes
- Self-studiers who don't need much assistance from an SAT instructor
Who should buy the Prep Expert SAT course?
- Students looking for more access to unofficial Digital SAT practice material
- Students looking for extended and affordable live instruction
PrepScholar vs Prep Expert SAT: Similarities and Differences
Now, Let's highlight the main similarities and differences between these two SAT prep rivals.
Main Similarities
- The self-paced prep packages on both platforms have a 1-year access period.
- There are no Digital SAT mobile apps or physical Digital SAT prep for students who sign up for either platform.
- Both platforms reference full-length official Digital SAT practice tests from the College Board as downloadable PDFS.
Main Differences
- PrepScholar customizes its lessons and quizzes to each student’s strengths. In contrast, Prep Expert follows a standardized lesson design.
- Prep Expert allows you to choose your Digital SAT instructor, whereas PrepScholar does not have this option.
- All instructor-led SAT prep packages on PrepScholar come with 1-year access to the self-paced course material. Enrolment in Prep Expert‘s live classes only comes with 60-day access to the self-paced platform.
PrepScholar vs Prep Expert SAT: Performance Comparison
Watch this first-hand review below for a behind the scenes peek into the Prep Expert and PrepScholar Digital SAT platforms.
New Digital SAT Lessons
What separates PrepScholar from other Digital SAT prep competitors is its delivery of self-paced lessons.
Upon signing up, students complete a diagnostic quiz before they receive access to the course platform.
The PrepScholar learning algorithm recommends lessons and practice drills based on your skill level. As a result, students can spend most of their prep time on areas with the most room for improvement.
Digital SAT math section video lesson from the PrepScholar Digital SAT prep course
Prep Expert provides an extensive library of lessons with no user-adapted lesson plan.
As such, students who have not identified their weak and strong areas might feel overwhelmed by the amount of Digital SAT prep content on the self-paced platform.
Prep Expert Digital SAT Course sample Math video lesson with annotations
Prep Expert, however, does a better job of teaching and reinforcing Digital SAT-specific test-taking strategies throughout their self-paced lessons.
In addition, most practice problems in their video lessons come from official SAT practice material.
They also have a more engaging lesson experience compared to PrepScholar. An on-camera instructor – the founder of Prep Expert – teaches video lessons that are typically shorter than 15 minutes.
In contrast, the video lessons on PrepScholar don’t have an on-camera instructor and could be as long as 40 minutes.
PrepScholar Digital SAT prep course reading and writing video lesson 2
After weighing the pros and cons of both courses closely in the lesson quality category, we found both to be a tie with a score of 4.8 out of 5.
SAT Practice Material
Comparing the practice material on both courses Prepscholar crushes Prep Expert and several other Digital SAT courses with its large reserve of over 7,000 new Digital SAT online questions
These questions do an excellent job of mimicking the real Digital SAT test-taking environment
PrepScholar SAT prep course quiz generator
However, PrepScholar doesn’t provide full-length Digital SAT practice tests.
Instead, they direct students to the College Board website to access official full-length Digital SAT practice tests using the Bluebook app.
Prep Expert on the other hand, now offers 5 full-length Digital SAT practice tests on their platform, that equally does a great job of mimicking the real Digital SAT environment.
Prep Expert Digital SAT Full-Length Practice Test Menu
Prep Expert also refers students to the College Board website, as all its homework-based Digital SAT practice material comes from Official linear Digital SAT practice tests.
In so doing, both platforms allow students to mimic the Digital SAT test-taking environment.
At the time of this review, neither provider had a license from the College Board to deliver official Digital SAT practice material on their platform.
Prep Expert provides detailed text-based answer explanations to their 5 full-length Digital SAT practice tests.
But do not provide any answer explanation to the 3 practice tests that they reference from the College Board for their homework assignments
While PrepScholar provides detailed text-based answer explanations for all their online practice questions, with some video-based answer explanations.
PrepScholar SAT prep course detailed answer explanation
PrepScholar, on the other hand, doesn’t provide answer explanations for the full-length practice tests they reference from the College Board.
Considering PrepScholar’s overwhelmingly large reserve of new Digital SAT practice material and detailed answer explanations, Prepscholar edges out Prep Expert in this category with a wide margin.
Getting a perfect score of 5.0 compared to Prep Expert with a 4.0 score.
Pricing
At the time of this review, the price of PrepScholar's self-paced course is $397.
In contrast, Prep Expert's Digital SAT Founder, with 2 years of access, starts at $1,200. Making PrepScholar the more affordable self-paced Digital SAT course option.
Prep Expert’s 6-Week Flagship course – with 36 hours of live instruction – costs $1,200, equivalent to $33 per hour of live instruction.
In contrast, PrepScholar has only one live class package, with 9 hours of classroom time.
Pricing for this package starts at $900, equivalent to $100 per hour, making Prep Expert the more affordable option for live Digital SAT classes.
To help families afford their SAT prep programs, PrepScholar offers monthly payment plans on many of their SAT prep packages. Prep Expert does not have this option.
Student Support
PrepScholar and Prep Expert distinguish themselves from the competition by using top-tier instructors in their live Digital SAT classes and 1-on-1 SAT tutoring packages.
Prep Expert SAT Sample Live Class for Math
However, they lack on-demand access to an instructor outside their live classes.
Prep Expert provides weekly office hours to every user of their platform, which allows students to get help with SAT practice questions they struggle with and learn from the questions of others.
Prep Expert Digital SAT office hour support access
PrepScholar caps its class size at 12 students, allowing each student to get more attention from the instructor. In addition, their live classes are more interactive. Students can turn on their cameras and unmute themselves to ask a question.
Prep Expert’s live classes are usually larger, especially during peak SAT prep season. They’re also not as interactive as PrepScholar’s, with students only allowed to communicate via chat.
PrepScholar only offers 9 hours of structured live instruction, which vastly differs from Prep Expert’s 36 hours of live instruction. Thus, Prep Expert is the winner in this category.
Customer Policies
Prep Expert has the higher Digital SAT score increase guarantee at +200 and +10 points for students on their live Digital SAT class and self-paced packages, respectively.
While PrepScholar promises +160 points guarantee on ALL their prep packages.
Prep Expert offers a full refund for cancelations after 72 hours of purchasing or starting a live online course. PrepScholar, on the other hand, provides a full refund if you cancel their instructor-led class after the first live class or tutoring session.
PrepScholar provides a 5-day risk-free trial that begins upon completion of the diagnostic SAT quiz, whereas Prep Expert offers no free trial on their SAT prep packages.
Considering their bolder and more generous customer policies, PrepScholar beats Prep Expert in this category.
Final Recommendation
PrepScholar is the best choice for students who are ideal candidates for a self-paced SAT prep plan.
However, Prep Expert provides equal value to PrepScholar at a lower price point when it comes to group learning. Therefore, it’s our recommended choice for Digital SAT prep via live online classes for those on a tight budget.
