(April 1, 2011) — After a strenuous day at school, you trudge into your living room, only to find yourself preparing to leave again. You are on your way to your SAT preparation classes. By the time you return, it is 9 p.m., leaving you only a few hours to rush through your homework and no time at all to check your Facebook notifications. This is the daily reality that faces thousands of SAT-panicked students across the country. Is the SAT worth months or years of stress? According to College Board, the SAT serves as a useful measurement of a student’s ability to succeed. It supplies colleges with an additional method of judging a student’s desirability. Unfortunately, students often over plan their “SAT prep” schedule, obsessing over studying for the much-anticipated test. Instead of wishing for more hours in a day to study, students should limit the amount of time and effort they put into SAT preparation to a reasonable level. When students realize that the SAT isn’t like other tests (in which cramming is enough to receive a high score), students panic and isolate themselves from all things not related to the SAT test. A majority of students makes the assumption that taking an SAT class will help them receive a high SAT score. Students and their parents invest several hundreds of dollars into prep classes, not realizing the amount of help it actually provides. At Revolution SAT Prep, for example, $500 — a lot of money in today’s economy — can get a student merely 30 hours worth of group courses. In 2009, a staggering 1.5 million students took the SAT, equivalent to two percent of the student population in the United States. Students believe often believe that paying an excessive amount of money is the only way to receive their ideal score. Advertisements from websites, including the College Board, influence many to feel this way by telling their audience how much colleges pay attention to SAT scores. The glorification of high SAT scores persuades most to panic and over think. Older methods, such as borrowing SAT prep books, can be just as helpful and require less time and energy from the SAT-panicked student. Although it is not portrayed as the most ideal and efficient way to prepare for the SAT, self-studying is a more common, and possibly better, form of preparation. Students with already over-booked schedules are forced to place the SAT on top of their priority list. While studying for the SAT is important, it should be made apparent to the test taker that they should study at a rate they can handle, not at a rate they assume is ideal in order to retain the most information.