Because it’s part of their job. Regional reps especially come to know high schools that send lots of kids to the college, and they make it their business to learn when an app comes from a HS they don’t know.
In the case of “feeder” high schools, they have the added data of how kids from that school actually do once at the college,and that over time.
Note that their measure of course rigor was quite poor, so some of that small 3% improvement in prediction likely relates to standardizing GPA across different types of classes and types of schools. I’d expect notably different results with a better evaluation of transcript.
Note that the DARCU study controlled for major and found test scores added no predictive benefit. That said, there is no doubt a correlation between test scores and major selection; as well as major selection and who chooses to submit test scores.
The UCLA study found little benefit due to the additional measures like you stated, a did the DARCU study, the Ithaca study, the CUNY study, and just about any study that includes a HS GPA, a good measure of HS course rigor, and a measure of SES/API/demographics .
I agree that SAT adds more value to predicting admission decisions as you reduce variables. For example, some colleges do not have holistic decisions and essentially admit by just a combination of HS GPA and SAT. If you eliminate SAT and only admit by HS GPA, then you’ll lose a lot of predictive power. However, some colleges also have very holistic decisions. if you have more holistic decisions that consider course rigor, the full transcript, LORs, essays, interviews, and various other criteria; then you’ll find SAT adds little predictive power beyond the conclusion from the rest of the application.
Actually, the UC/CSU GPA calculation appears to be an attempt to discourage extreme numbers of AP/honors courses, by limiting the number of +1 points to 8 semester courses’ worth over 10th-11th grades (so about a third of one’s 10th-11th grade course work needs to be AP/honors to get the maximum GPA benefit at UC/CSU).
However, the competitive arms race of trying to have the hardest schedule to impress colleges (both UCs and privates that have subjective admissions reading) and compete for class rank (used at some privates) means that students are incentivized to load up on AP/honors courses.
Of course, if the high school’s hardest courses were not AP courses, students trying to get into highly competitive colleges would want to load up on whatever the hardest courses are in order to impress those colleges.
@studious99 - again, they have seen the students.
For big state schools like UMich, UVA, etc. etc. they have dozens of students every year from a wide range of HSs. They know in-state schools amazingly well and have a huge data bank.
They know top feeder schools well (UMich takes 75 kids a year from a top Ill public. They don’t need those kids SATs.)
Even tiny Bates, with 500 enrolled out of 1000+ accepted has a wide range of data points.
Heck, Princeton could go into the HS rating game instead of the “sell kids tests and test prep” game and it would make money and free up a few weekends for kids who like to, you know, volunteer, or work, or, god forbid, play…
It’s really not as hard as everyone wants to make it out to be. It’s a money-making scheme and we all are being ponzied.
I’m not saying UCs encourage it, but every kid (and GC) knows Cal and UCLA will look beyond your UC GPA in their “holistic” review. That’s just how it is. (and if UCs dropped any points for APs/Honors and just took UW GPA, it would help a ton.) But APs are not as bad, financially, as SATs/ACTs, except that many kids need/get tutoring for them which is pricey.
If all schools would dump the extra GPA point and simply list APs with scores the # taking them would drop quite a bit I wager.
In practice, the cap on the number of AP/honors +1 points is lower than the typical number of AP/honors courses that a high achieving student will choose even in the absence of the “arms race”, so it would not be surprising if most UC applicants had the maximum of 8 +1 points in their GPA*, so changing to unweighted GPA would not really be any different in a practical sense, since the AP/honors “arms race” is driven by the quest for perceived rigor far beyond the capped number for UC recalculated GPA (remember that many of the UC applicants are also applying to other schools, such as Stanford, USC, etc. where rigor may be evaluated holistically). It may matter more (both in admissions effect and as an incentive) for the less selective campuses among the CSUs, though.
*Back when UC StatFinder was up, the average number of high school courses qualifying for honors points for UC applicants was findable, and greater than 8 for all UC campuses (including Merced).
Considering all of the posts quoting with essay as the best predictor, that does not account for the current trend toward not requiring the essay.
I am quoting prepscholar’ s website from 2017:
“Harvard, Dartmouth, Princeton, Stanford, Brown, Duke, and Yale require the SAT Essay, Cornell, Georgetown, UPenn, MIT, UChicago, and NYU do not.”
@CaliDad2020 The entire process is a scam. I disagree with you on standardized testing. It’s an equalizer that allows talented kids an opportunity to at least get looked at - especially those that don’t come from “feeder” schools.
To the extent SAT or ACT scores get a student from a school noticed who otherwise wouldn’t have been, I agree.
But just go down any NM letter, semi or finalist list for any state on any given year. Try CA. I assure you it will feature mostly (among others):
Freemont - like half the list!
Arcadia
Aliso Viego
Menlo
La Jolla
Castro Valley
Cupertino (all schools!)
Troy
etc.
So yeah, if it helps some kid who would otherwise get overlooked, but for every one of those there are 100? other kids who 90% of the college Adcoms can place without hesitation in the right “bucket” by GPA, rigor, ECs, LOR, Essays, and school attended. And that wastes a lot of time and $$.
However, those colleges have their own application essays. Presumably, the quality of writing in such essays affects the evaluation of the admissions reading, so that the SAT/ACT essay may be redundant in that case. Also, the discovery of ways to game the SAT essay by some test-prep companies may have weakened its usefulness in more recent years.
Perhaps it may have been intended to be that way in the distant past, but there is no way to completely separate measured ability from environmental advantages/disadvantages, particularly with the increased trend* of test preparation and multiple retries.
*Decades ago, someone may have taken the SAT or ACT once or maybe twice, without much preparation beyond reading the booklet of sample questions. Now, it seems to be the norm to send students to test preparation courses before taking the SAT, and planning for many more than two test tries.
Yep. the issue is that any kid who wants to get into a top program at a top UC feels they need more than the 8 max and you are right that simply lowering the cap won’t change that for the “top 5” esp in the impacted competitive majors. But the “bottom” UCs - and even some “non-big 3” still take a decent # of kinds with a sub-4 UC GPA. Getting rid of the extra points won’t solve the problem for sure, but might take the pressure off.
That said, the economics of the AP are not as bad as the SAT/ACT, esp if you’re going to a school that accepts AP for actual credit units. Then it is well worth it (my neice was forced to graduate a year early because she had so many APs. My brother was thrilled - until she decided that meant she could do a progressive masters in 4 years and 2 summer course… there go the savings!
But for kids going to most private schools APs are mostly a resume enhancer - and not always that effective a teach tool. Heck, LAUSD supposedly moved their entire school schedule to start in summer just so HS kids could have more time to learn their AP material. That’s just the cart leading the horse way too much for me.
@CaliDad2020, college GPAs have indeed gone up over the past decade, though often times, people seem to bemoan that and call it grade inflation.
@ucbalumnus LOL!! Call me a cynic, but based on the number of families hiring essay coaches, I can’t help but see humor in the idea of gaming the SAT essay.
I think all of the assessments have flaws and the best schools can do is go with the whole of what they see represented.
Are you really arguing that there was a mesurable college performance bump for those 8% extra students who took APs in 2013 v. 2003?
I guess we’d see it in GPA, GRE MCAT, LSAT trends?
One of my kids got a 29 on first ACT and a 35 a year and half later (without prep beyond a review book from the library and a couple of hours with me and a printout of some tricks and tips I found - mostly xiggi’s).
Which one is indicative of that kid’s ability to succeed in college? The 29 or the 35?
@CaliDad2020, that would not surprise me, but we’d need the data.
As for the other standardized tests, they get rejiggered/renormalized often so it may be difficult to compare across years.
Most of the applicants to the less selective UCs (including Merced) had more than 8 +1 honors points, so it is not like lowering the cap from 8 to 0 would do anything but shift all applicants’ GPAs down 0.3 to 0.4, while leaving the relative positions of applicants’ GPAs largely similar.
Which school? Looks like UCs do not include credit from AP scores in credit unit ceilings, so a student is not forced to graduate early (but can in some cases) due to credit from AP scores.
But note that subject credit and advanced placement from AP scores can be useful even if no credit units are gained, or the student does not choose to graduate early. Subject credit and advanced placement allow the substitution of free electives in place of required lower level courses.
@CaliDad2020 - yes, there is always low hanging fruit with prep/feeder school kids. I live in Virginia, in a strong public school system. I see first hand how a school like UVA works. There is no doubt if you have the right connections and pedigree (in name or by attending the right private/public school), you can get in, even if your stats are not as impressive as those of other applicants. It’s incredibly obvious. As I said, for many students, strong standardized tests scores are the only way they will get noticed.
Proliferation of lower value APs (e.g. human geography, environmental science) may mean an increased number of students taking APs, even if the overall academic strength remains similar. But that does not mean that APs in core subjects (e.g. English, calculus) are worthless for the stronger students who took them in earlier times and continue to take them now.