The effectiveness of a commercial preparation class in New York City for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was studied. A group of the regular clientele of the school (55 eleventh graders) was compared with a group of low-income minority students given scholarships to the course (33 Black or Hispanic eleventh graders). The effects of the coaching school were studied, using equivalent control and experimental groups. Administrative problems and time constraints resulted in a lower quality instructional environment for the scholarship students. After coaching, regular students increased their SAT scores by about 52 points for verbal and 58 points for math. For scholarship students, coaching had no effect on verbal scores and increased their scores by about 57 points for math. This may have reflected a lack of experience in teaching minority students by the instructors as well as inadequate high school preparation for the type of instruction offered. (SLD)