Professional test-prep courses are time-consuming and expensive, but if they significantly boost a student’s SAT score, they might be worth it for those who can afford the coaching.

“You interpret 20 points differently depending on where you are starting from and where you are applying,” said on SAT prep-course expert. “If you apply to Harvard, maybe a 10 point increase is worth it.” Read More »

After last week’s Numbers column on the various definitions of earnings per share, a reader wrote in to ask: When financial sources report price per earnings ratios, do they use GAAP earnings? Read More »

Riding to Numbers HQ this morning, I spotted a C&C soda truck somewhere near Newark, N.J.

This wouldn’t seem an extraordinary phenomenon in and of itself, but I found the sighting to be unusual because I was just the other day thinking about how I hadn’t seen the C&C brand in years. Then, mere days after these initial thoughts of C&C on the train, I saw a C&C delivery truck.

What an odd coincidence, I thought. But then I started thinking a bit more about the scenario. Were the odds really that long of seeing the brand? Read More »

Today’s number, 5056,06, was 15 years in the making.

The Nasdaq Composite Index, after closing at 5048.62 on March 10, 2000, reclaimed that and then some on Thursday. Read More »

In baseball, how many men must come to the plate–9 or 10–for a team to have “batted around”?

The answer varies–and players and fans alike vocally support their view.

� Read More »

When CareerCast.com’s annual rankings of the top 200 careers came out last week, we were chagrined to learn that newspaper reporter came in dead last of the ranked. Sigh.

But closer inspection of the list cheered us here at The Numbers (whose heart, and day job, resides in the inky embrace of the daily newspaper), as four of the top 10 jobs were in fields that require a different sort of literacy: numerical or mathematic. Read More »