The Fallacy of “Guarantees”

Many companies and individuals mention and promote “guarantees.” For example, here is an SAT improvement guarantee from a national tutoring firm:

“We stand behind the quality and outcomes of our SAT tutoring, which is why we guarantee your results. If your child completes our 30-Hour SAT Program and doesn’t improve by at least 200 points from his or her actual PSAT score, we will provide you with an additional 18 hours of SAT tutoring for free. Likewise, if your child completes our 24-Hour SAT Program and doesn’t improve by at least 100 points, we will provide you with an additional 18 hours of SAT tutoring for free.” NOTE: To make sense of this “Guarantee,” remember that each section of the PSAT is scored 20-80, not 200-800 as is the SAT.

This “guarantee” is virtually useless for two obvious reasons: first, few students really take 30 hours of tutoring (that would be 15 two-hour classes in Academy’s schedule) or even 24 hours; and second, the (unlikely) payoff on the guarantee is just more hours of the same type of tutoring that did not work in the first place!

Further, in the fine print of all such “guarantees” is the qualifier to the effect that the student must have completed all work to the satisfaction of the company. Do you want to buy some (swampland) in Florida, too?

Anyone who promises you a certain score or guarantees a certain amount of improvement is spinning fairy tales!

PS. In the handbooks given out by the college guidance offices at many private schools there is usually a sentence that says “Be wary of any company that guarantees a specific score increase.”