Your child wants to prepare for the SAT. What happens now?

You pay, you decide, and usually nobody explains any of it to you. Centres talk to the student; you see the invoice.

This page tells you four things: what the SAT is, what it costs, what it cannot promise, and how to check any centre — including this one.

Ask us the questions in the last section. Ask for the answers in writing. If we refuse or deflect, that is an answer too.

The SAT is an exam used in applications to US universities. It measures school knowledge: reading, the rules of writing, and mathematics. Scores run from 400 to 1600.

The SAT is not an English exam. That is the most common misunderstanding here. IELTS and TOEFL measure language; the SAT measures knowledge. Most universities ask for both, which means your child will need both.

The SAT is one part of an application. School grades, essays and recommendations count too.

The exam itself costs money, and it goes to College Board, not to us: $68 registration plus a $43 international fee — $111 in total, for every sitting.

The fee-waiver programme is written for low-income students in the United States and does not reach us. If anyone says they can get you a waiver, that is not true.

On top of that: IELTS or TOEFL, university application fees, the financial aid form, and visa fees. All of them need an international payment card.

Course prices and group start dates are on the course pages. The first lesson is free — you see a lesson before you pay for one.

Almost every parent asks this, and we will not answer it as legal advice. We will only tell you what the public sources say.

The government advisory portal states that education deferment is granted to conscripts studying at institutions in Uzbekistan — secondary, specialised secondary, vocational, and full-time higher education. Foreign universities are not mentioned there. Not mentioned is not the same as prohibited.

Separately: students are typically called to the paid one-month mobilisation-reserve camp in July–August, which collides with application summer. Put it in the calendar early.

Ask any centre these questions — including us. Ask for the answers in writing.

• Which legal entity takes the money? Show the tax number and the contract.
• Who teaches? Their name, and their own score or track record.
• How many students per group? How long is a lesson, and how often?
• May I sit in on one real lesson?
• Where are last year’s results, and what document backs them?
• What are the refund terms, and which clause of the contract states them?
• Are you promising admission, or a visa?

A parent’s job is not to teach the SAT. It is to build the conditions and lower the pressure.

• Build the weekly schedule together, then respect it — no chores during study blocks.
• Protect sleep. A tired teenager writes badly.
• Provide a computer and stable internet — the exam is digital now.
• After each practice test ask “what was hard?”, not “what did you score?”.
• Do not compare your child to the neighbour’s.
• Do not treat one bad practice score as a catastrophe.
• Do not build the university list for them.

Take nothing on this page on our word. Every part of it can be checked somewhere:

• Test dates, fees and rules — collegeboard.org.
• University requirements and financial aid — that university’s own site.
• The military service question — your district military commissariat, in writing.
• Legislation — lex.uz.
• Consumer complaints — consumer.gov.uz. That applies to us too.

If you still have questions after this page, we will sit down and talk. Twenty minutes, in Uzbek, with nothing being sold.

Your child does not need to be there. Afterwards we give you a one-page written summary, so you can compare us against other centres. And if you want it, you sit in on one real lesson.