PrepScholar
reviews and complaints

I told the company that my kid said it wasn't helping him, so he stopped using it. They wouldn't give us our money back even though it didn't help him get ready for the test. They'd rather make him work hard on his own and keep our money. They're not a good service provider.

I had a bad experience with PrepScholar, just like some other folks here. Their money back guarantee ad is tricky and hides important conditions in the 18-page small font terms and conditions, which is almost impossible for a regular student to achieve (if you're a super genius, you don't need their product anyway). My son didn't improve his SAT score at all after completing all the assignments by PrepScholar and working more than 40 hours as instructed by them. But when I asked for a refund, they said my son had to master all 49 skills, which was nowhere in their ad. They knew my son only had one month to work on his SAT, and they have the power to decide if he achieved mastery or not. We don't know the standard for mastery, and we didn't even know my son was required to achieve it until I asked for a refund. Based on our experience, it's super hard to achieve the so-called "mastery" on all 49 skills. If you fail on any of them (which they decide arbitrarily, in a black box), you don't qualify for a refund. The worst part is they don't put this important condition in their big "160pt increase guarantee or money back" ad, not even with an asteroid by the "money back" with a small-font note below it. It's totally misleading. They also didn't mention this requirement during the month-long communication with them, even when they saw there were quite a few items not "mastery". They just kept quiet and let you lose your refund qualification. I regret not checking the ComplaintsBoard.com complaint before buying their service. If I had known about these hegemonic terms, I would have thought twice about it.

I gotta say, I was pretty impressed with PrepScholar. My niece signed up for their trial period and I made the payment with my credit card. Unfortunately, she didn't find the program helpful and we decided to request a refund. I emailed them yesterday and cc'd my niece, and she also sent an email today to follow up. I'm happy to report that they responded quickly and processed the refund without any issues. Overall, I think PrepScholar is a solid option for test prep and their customer service is on point.

I bought an ACT prep course from Prepscholar on 8/4 with a free 5 day trial. I emailed them on 8/8 to cancel but didn't hear back. I called on 8/9 and talked to a sales rep who said they were busy and would get back to me. I emailed again yesterday with a pic of my 8/8 email. No response and can't reach customer support. Today, they charged me $397. I followed their website's guidelines to cancel. I just want my money back. It's frustrating because no one is responding. I can show them my email to cancel within the 5 day trial.

I bought PrepScholar's website to help my daughter study for the SAT's. We spent $400 on it. Later, my daughter's principal said she shouldn't take the SAT. We agreed and she didn't take it. We asked for a refund, but they said no. We asked again, but they still said no. We hardly used the website and it didn't cost them anything. We're struggling financially and $400 is a lot for us. We told them this, but they didn't care.

I bought the full package from Prep Scholar for $2997 and talked to a lady named 'Allysa'. I asked her about the 160-point guarantee and she said that my child needs to take an official SAT before starting the program and COMPLETE the online course to qualify for the guarantee. She said that most students COMPLETE the program in 50 hours and the tutoring is one-on-one. If my child COMPLETES the program, all 49 skills, and uses all tutoring hours, but doesn't improve by 160 points, they will refund $397 for the online portion, and I will get 20 hours of free tutoring. But she didn't explain what 'complete the course' means. I called her again and asked her to explain it. She said that my child must achieve mastery level in all 49 skill areas. She said that MOST of their students achieve mastery of all skills in only 50 hours of online instruction, but it's not true. I asked her how many hours a struggling student might take to achieve mastery in ALL 49, worst case. She said "100" hours. My daughter spent 4 months, 110 hours online and *** hours of tutoring to get a 90-point improvement, with 'mastery' in only 3 of 49 skills. Her tutor did *** of the 20 hours with her so she could not 'qualify' for the guarantee, even if she had mastered all the skills. The 'terms' also indicate that a skill may no longer be assigned if you have taken it too many times. In 110 hours, no skill was ever 'no longer assigned' to our daughter. So that statement is UNTRUE. The terms are RIGGED so that your child will never qualify for the 'guarantee.