How the matcher works

What it works out first

• The gap: your target score minus your current score. Scores are rounded to the nearest 10, the steps the SAT is scored in.
• Weeks to the test: whole weeks from today to your test date.
• Hours available: weeks times your weekly study hours.
• Hours planned for the gap: one focused hour for every 5 points of gap, with a minimum of 10, and 1.5 times that when you start at 1400 or above, where each point is harder to find. This is the matcher's planning assumption, not a research finding: there is no official figure for how many hours a given gain takes. Check it against your own practice tests.
• Pace: comfortable when the hours available are at least 1.5 times the hours planned, workable when they at least cover them, and tight when they fall short.

How it scores each kind of prep

Each of the five kinds of prep starts at zero and gains or loses points from the rules below. The highest total is your match and the next is the runner-up. A tie goes to the simpler, cheaper option, in this order: self-study, online course or app, class, diagnostic, tutoring. If you are already at or above your target, the match is light self-study whatever the totals.

Tutoring is never the default: it loses points for small gaps and tight budgets, and wins only when how you learn, a stalled score, a close deadline or a high starting score call for it. When the match is tutoring or a diagnostic, the result names a provider to start with, Dream Seekers Academy's Score Accelerator, alongside the checks for choosing any tutor.

The warnings it adds

• Your score is a guess or a PSAT: take a full Bluebook practice test to confirm it.
• The test date has passed, or is under two weeks away.
• A very large gap, or a large gap in under eight weeks: plan on a second date or a nearer target.
• A tight pace: more hours a week or a later date would help.
• A target below your current score: you may not need to retake.

How the week-by-week plan is built

• It covers the weeks to your test, up to 16. Further out, it suggests light practice until the 16-week plan starts.
• Week 1 sets your baseline: a full Bluebook practice test (or a review of your last official or practice test), an error log and your top three skills to work on.
• Practice weeks split your hours 65/35 toward your weaker section, or 50/50 when they are even or you are unsure, and rotate through the official skill domains: Algebra, Advanced Math, Problem-Solving and Data Analysis, Geometry and Trigonometry; Standard English Conventions, Information and Ideas, Craft and Structure, Expression of Ideas.
• A full practice test every three weeks (every four if you study under four hours a week), and one the week before the test.
• The last week halves your hours: light review and test-day logistics.

Its limits

• It knows only what you tell it. A guessed score gives a guessed result.
• The point values are judgement calls written down so you can check them, not weights fitted to student outcome data.
• It does not compare individual providers on price or quality; use the five checks for that.
• It cannot see learning differences, test anxiety or accommodations. If those apply, talk to your school counselor too.
• Nothing you enter is stored. Your answers live in the page's link, so a shared link shows the same result.