<p>I didn’t look at any of the statistics, but I would just say that learning that people underperform compared to scores and HS GPA wouldn’t surprise me at all. The much more interesting question is to what extent people overperform.</p>
<p>I think i heard someone say before that males score higher SAT’s than females, but females do better in college</p>
<p>A higher number of males go into engineering/math/hard sciences than females, whereas females outnumber guys in liberal arts education. </p>
<p>My point: It’s easier to get a 4.0 when you’re majoring in english than it would be if you majored in physics.</p>
<p>What makes a major harder than another? The course work, amount of time needed to study, or the innate intellectual ability required to succeed?</p>
<p>People choose a major based on their interest and strengths. Why is an science major harder than a music major? To be honest, music would be very difficult for me since I am weak in that subject, where as I could succeed as a science major since it’s easier for me to understand. I don’t believe any major is “easier” then the next unless you’re pursing something that does not fit your strengths.</p>
<p>If a major is harder based on course work/effort needed then the SAT has no correlation to motivation, effort, and responsibility.</p>
<p>At Rice and other schools, the people who get the higher SAT scores are more likely to go into the better departments and thus face more challenges for their GPA.</p>
<p>I got a 1560 out of 1600 on the SAT.
Current College GPA… it currently starts with a 2. ;)</p>
<p>I had a terrible freshman year. I arrived at Duke with zilch study skills and my ‘enthusiasm’ for alcohol got the best of me. (Also I took difficult classes… math/science/economics…)
I got better as time went on and am a happy math major!
I sometimes don’t know how I got into Duke or Dartmouth. I feel like they just looked at my SAT, saw I got a lot of 5’s on my APs, and did well in a lot of mathy stuff…I was far from being valedictorian in high school.</p>
<p>That’s par for the course dunbar. If you look at the average student majoring in Math, Physics, Chemistry or Engineering at most universities, you will find that their academic abilities are sharper than those majoring in less challenging majors. </p>
<p>But it does not change my observation that standardized scores are a poor indicator of academic potential, intellectual ability or intelligence. That is not to say that extremes aren’t telling. A student who scores an 800 on the SAT clearly won’t be as capable as a student who scores a perfect 1600. But once a student scores clearly over a 1200, I think there are other far more accurate indicators of academic potential. </p>
<p>I also think that standardized test scores at private universities and public universities should be compared separately because they have different admissions philosophies and reporting styles.</p>
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Like what? What do you think is predictive, as opposed to a post hoc explanation?</p>
<p>GPA combined with course sellection (AP, IB etc…) and the school’s AP and IB exam record. I think the Europeans have it right with their conditional acceptances. AP results combined with GPA is probably the best indicator of academic potential.</p>
<p>I’ll just add that I don’t think “academic potential” is the same thing as “predicted academic performance.”</p>
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<p>I’m sure College Board would agree.</p>
<p>Intuitively, the GPA over the 4 years of HS should be a very strong indicator, but as we have seen it is so dependent on the rigor of the HS curriculum and the prevalence of grade inflation.</p>
<p>I assess the PSAT and SAT scores as indicating ability (both natural and learned), at least for those students who do not do the over the top tutors, etc to attempt to skew the results. I view GPA as indicating the student’s willingness to apply that ability over an extended period of time and diverse subject matters. </p>
<p>The number of AP courses taken and the scores help to give a specific context to what happens when that student applies his abilities to particular subjects using a similar scope. They are like national exams in those subjects.</p>
<p>So, high SAT indicates ability, high GPA indicates work ethic and numerous high AP’s indicate capability to achieve at least in the introductory level courses at most colleges.</p>
<p>Whether the student with this profile actually thrives at college doesn’t change the fact that I’m not aware of any other way to make the selection any more rationally based.</p>
<p>SAT measures ability in some, assuming they do not prepare excessively for the test. However, some may bomb the test no matter how hard they prepare, and that does not mean they lack ability. The SAT is not for everybody.</p>