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Start free trial →ChooseFI | Financial Independence Podcast · Money & Markets · November 2026
Asked what families should know about the SAT and ACT today, the test-prep company founder explains why he thinks scores are worth the study time, using his own merit-aid story.
…today. So it'll probably hang around just due to nostalgia or other things, but you can't hang your hat on it, certainly. And GPA mattering from day one of high school needs to be the first and second and third point since even a few oopses on the GPA front can derail the rest of the application.
…What do people have to know today? Is there new things on the horizon? When should families start taking these tests seriously? I know literally as we're recording this, my daughter is taking the, I think it's the PSAT 9 or something like that. Talk us through the landscape of what's going on.
…just be whatever. So it's not an IQ test. It's very coachable stuff. But you need to, as a family, help your student understand where they're going to set aside some time to study for it. Because as I always say, I will never make more money per hour ever, ever, ever, than I did studying for this test in high school. And that was back when college was literally one-third the cost that it is now. I quit tennis. And in those 60 or 70 hours I worked on this stuff, I paid for 140 grand of Wash U. Regrettably, I do not make like $2,000 an hour. And so the dollars are real, even more so if you happen to be in a state like Florida where there's bright futures or other things. It's not just any given school.
Right. So there is a very quantifiable return on SAT and ACT improvement in certain instances.
Yeah, my favorite client last year, she sells a lot of really high-end homes to like Falcons and Brave Players. She's a great lady. Her son is a bro. She would not be mad at me saying that on the podcast. Her son, he's very smart, but he's very lazy. He's probably internationally ranked in Call of…
I love that. Okay. So you've said multiple tests a couple of times. So two questions, but they're going to be tied together. So is there any detriment to taking any of these tests, AC, the SAT? Let's just say SAT for now, to taking it repeatedly.