Families looking for SAT prep in Paris find intensive courses, group classes, private lessons and online platforms. Before choosing, it helps to know what the College Board already provides for free: it is a lot, and a good preparation builds on it rather than redoing it.
What the College Board gives for free
The SAT is taken in the Bluebook app, and the same app offers full-length practice tests, adaptive and scored like the real exam. The College Board also publishes a bank of official questions, filterable by section, domain, skill and difficulty, and works with Khan Academy, which offers thousands of free practice questions, videos and a personalised study plan.
These resources have an advantage no private preparation can copy: they are the real questions, written by the people who write the exam. A serious preparation uses them, rather than selling home-made tests whose level is not calibrated.
The format to prepare for
The SAT lasts 2 hours 14 minutes, with a 10-minute break. The Reading and Writing section has 54 questions in 64 minutes, the Math section 44 questions in 70 minutes. Each section is split into two modules, the second harder or easier depending on the results of the first. In maths, some answers are typed rather than chosen, and the Desmos calculator is built into the app.
What a preparation should bring
An SAT preparation is worth what it adds to the free resources. For a student from a French lycée, it should bring four things.
- A diagnosis: a first full test in Bluebook, and a section-by-section, skill-by-skill reading of what is costing points.
- Maths in English: the French specialist maths course covers most of it, but the vocabulary, long word problems and statistics or percentage questions need their own practice.
- A method for Reading and Writing: English grammar and fast-reading questions follow rules that are learned through targeted work.
- Pace: full tests in real conditions, enough of them for time management to become a reflex.
Be wary of promises of a specific score and of preparations that do not use the official tests. A one-week intensive course helps a student already close to their target; a gap of 150 points takes steady work over several months.
SAT prep in Paris or online
The exam is taken on computer, and the preparation lends itself to it: an online lesson means working on the same screen, in the same app, as on test day. In-person classes still help a student who needs a setting to get started. The criterion that matters lies elsewhere: a teacher who follows the student over several months, corrects their mistakes one by one and adjusts the plan after each practice test.
Taking the SAT in Paris: centres and dates
On 3 October 2026, the College Board lists among its centres in Paris and the Île-de-France region the École Jeannine Manuel, the Collège Sévigné, the Columbia Global Center (Reid Hall), the American Business College and the Lycée international de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, each on certain dates only. Several were already full for November and December. The 2026-2027 sittings are on 3 October, 7 November and 5 December 2026, then 6 March, 1 May and 5 June 2027.
2026-2027 dates and fees. Registration outside the United States: $111 ($68 plus a $43 international fee), College Board fee valid until June 2027. The registration deadline falls about two weeks before each sitting: 23 October for the 7 November sitting, 20 November for the 5 December one.
Our preparation
I prepare the Math section in online private lessons, starting from a first practice test and with a plan reviewed after each test. Summit, our digital SAT practice platform, is freely available with our other free tools: practice exams in test conditions, practice by domain, a detailed score report. To set the target, see What SAT score to aim for.