The Princeton Review SAT Vs. PrepScholar SAT (Which Is Better?) 

We've purchased and spent several weeks using the Digital SAT programs offered by The Princeton Review and PrepScholar.

Where we evaluated both platforms for their performance in SAT lesson quality, student support, pricing, practice material, and customer policies.

After reading this article, you’ll have the information you need to decide which pf these two popular Digital SAT prep courses can boost your student’s SAT scores the most.

The Princeton Review vs PrepScholar Digital SAT Overview

The Princeton Review offers four SAT prep packages: the Digital SAT Self-Paced Course, the Digital SAT Essentials Course, the Digital SAT 1400+ Course, and the Digital SAT 1500+ Tutoring.

The Self-Paced course is an online package providing basic preparation materials. While the Essentials course includes live instruction and additional practice tests.

As for the Digital SAT 1400+ and 1500+ courses, both offer score guarantees and include live instruction and personalized tutoring.

PrepScholar offers three main SAT prep packages: the Complete Digital SAT Online Prep, PrepScholar Classes, and Complete + Tutoring.

The Complete Prep option provides self-paced interactive lessons and practice materials. While the PrepScholar Classes adds live class hours to the base package. As you can tell, the Complete + Tutoring includes private tutoring. 

Who should buy the PrepScholar Digital SAT course?

• Self-studiers who don't need much instructor support
• Students who prefer lessons and practice questions that cater to their specific needs

Who should buy The Princeton Review SAT course?

• Students who work best in a classroom environment
• Students who need more interactive live lessons

Similarities and Differences

Main Similarities

• Both providers offer self-paced Digital SAT prep courses, live SAT prep classes and 1-on-1 tutoring with an SAT expert.
• Self-paced courses include 12 months of continuous access.
• Users of the self-paced plans receive no on-demand access to an instructor or live help via office hours.
• There are no SAT mobile apps for either platform. 

Main Differences

• The Princeton Review offers in-person Digital SAT classes in various locations. In contrast, PrepScholar is entirely online. 
• PrepScholar’s self-paced platform uses an adaptive learning algorithm to deliver customized Digital SAT learning material to each student. However, The Princeton Review’s self-paced platform follows a one-size-fits-all approach. 
• After signing up for PrepScholar, users must complete a short diagnostic quiz. This option is not available on The Princeton Review platform.

The Princeton Review vs PrepScholar SAT: Performance Comparison

We evaluated these courses for several weeks based on key performance areas, including lessons, practice materials, and pricing. 

SAT Lessons 

First off, know that unlike other courses, both PrepScholar and The Princeton Review have updated their content for the Digital SAT with new lessons.

PrepScholar’s self-paced Digital SAT video lessons are more bite-sized typically under 10 minutes long and are complemented with a text guide.

Making the learning material ideal for both visual and text learners.

Furthermore, the lessons in the PrepScholar self-paced course are coupled with exercises like short activities and practice drills. Which allows users to immediately test their understanding of the concept being taught.

The Princeton Review’s new Digital SAT self-paced lessons are adaptations of a past recording of their premium Digital SAT live class totaling just over 12 hours of content.

In other words, you’re getting 12 hours of a similar learning material for much less than what you’ll pay for their live Digital SAT class.

However, unlike PrepScholar, the videos on The Princeton Review’s self-paced learning modules are not bite sized, as the average video length is around 23 minutes long.

From an engagement standpoint, the videos on both platforms do not feature an instructor on camera. However, PrepScholar stands out with its shorter-form lesson content, which tends to be more engaging.

What truly distinguishes PrepScholar from other digital SAT prep courses is the method of lesson delivery. 

Upon registering with PrepScholar, users must take a diagnostic quiz before gaining full access to the course platform.

Following this quiz, PrepScholar's learning algorithm assesses your performance and starts recommending lessons and practice drills tailored to your skill level.

This approach by PrepScholar ensures that students focus the bulk of their prep time on areas where they are weakest and need the most improvement.

Consequently, every PrepScholar Digital SAT course participant experiences the course in a personalized manner, making their learning experience uniquely efficient.

In the category of Digital SAT lesson quality, The Princeton Review slightly outperforms PrepScholar, scoring 5/5 compared to PrepScholar's 4.9/5.

SAT Practice Material

Comparing the practice material on both courses, Prepscholar offers an enormous reserve with over 7,000 new Digital SAT online questions that do an excellent job of mimicking the real Digital SAT test-taking environment.

These questions are very similar in appearance to official Digital SAT questions and are just as challenging.

However, despite having a large practice question bank, Prepscholar doesn’t provide its own full-length Digital SAT practice tests.

Instead, students are directed to the College Board’s website to complete official Digital SAT practice tests using Bluebook.  

In contrast, The Princeton Review offers over 800 new Digital SAT practice practice questions, which you’ll find in practice drills accompanying the lesson modules.

Where these drills are attempted in an environment that mimics the real Digital SAT.

But when it comes to full-length Digital SAT practice tests, The Princeton Review beat PrepScholar with their own set of 4 full-length Digital SAT practice tests.  

These practice tests are 2-stage adaptive and have all the on-screen features of the real Digital SAT exam.

In terms of answer explanations, The Princeton Review provides all text-based answer explanations. 

Whereas Prepscholar does a better job of supplementing their text-based answer explanations with video-based answer explanations  

Overall, given the larger volume of practice questions and better quality answer explanations, Prepscholar edges out The Princeton Review in this category with a perfect 5/5, while The Princeton Review comes i

Student Support

Both providers lack on-demand access to an instructor in their self-paced courses. However, their premium versions allow different levels of support. 

Users of The Princeton Review's Digital SAT 1400+ live class package get 24/7 on-demand access to an instructor via chat.

They also get unlimited access to daily virtual classrooms called the Digital SAT Advantage Sessions.

However, PrepScholar only provides additional access to an instructor in their live class package. 

While PrepScholar provides grading services for the optional essay section, The Princeton Review does not.

The Princeton Review caps its class size at approximately 25 students, whereas PrepScholar keeps the live classes smaller, with a maximum of 12 students per class.

This ensures that each student receives more attention from the instructor.

Both courses allow students to ask questions, ensuring a very interactive live classroom environment. 

Considering that their pros outweigh those of PrepScholar in student support, The Princeton Review takes the lead in this category.

Pricing

At the time of this review, The Princeton Review’s standalone self-paced SAT course started at $300. In contrast, PrepScholar’s self-paced course is priced at $397. 

Pricing for The Princeton Review’s exclusive live SAT class starts at $2,200, with 36 hours of instruction. This price amounts to $61 per hour of live instruction.

If you go with their Essentials course containing 18 hours of live instruction, you pay $949. This price is equivalent to $53 per hour of live instruction. 

PrepScholar only has one live class package, with 9 hours of classroom time. The pricing for this package starts at $900, amounting to an hourly cost of $100 per hour. 

To help families who otherwise can’t afford their SAT prep programs, PrepScholar has monthly payment plans on many of their SAT prep packages. The Princeton Review offers no payment plans on their SAT packages. 

When comparing both courses on the price per month of access and price per hour of instruction, The Princeton Review is the cheaper option.

Customer Policies

PrepScholar provides a 5-day risk-free trial that begins when you complete the diagnostic SAT quiz. Customers of The Princeton Review’s self-paced course can claim a 100% refund if they cancel the course within seven days. 

For The Princeton Review’s instructor-led class packages, refunds are only possible before the first live class or tutoring session begins.

PrepScholar allows refunds for course cancelations made after the first live class or the first hour of the 1-on-1 tutoring session.

PrepScholar has a +160-point improvement guarantee on all SAT prep packages. In contrast, The Princeton Review limits its +150-point score improvement guarantee to the Digital SAT 1500+ and 1400+ prep packages.

Based on their bolder and more generous customer policies, PrepScholar has the advantage over The Princeton Review in this category.

Final Recommendation

Based on the selection factors considered, we found The Princeton Review to be the better choice for a wider demographic of students preparing for the SAT than PrepScholar.

This is one of the main reasons why The Princeton Review takes our top pick for the best Digital SAT prep courses on the market.

In our opinion, Prepscholar's Digital SAT learning technology provides a lot of value to students who want a personalized learning approach focusing on their strengths and weaknesses. 

So, if you are looking for a self-paced Digital SAT prep course with a tailored learning approach, PrepScholar is the ideal choice.