<p>That's pretty interesting what QuantMech said. Kids with high GPAs but low SAT scores don't do well in college because the SAT doesn't mean anything, but because they have a tendency to go into easier majors. Kids with SAT scores generally go into more rigorous majors (science, engineering) skewing their grades downward- but I don't think that reduces the predicting power of the SAT. Maybe more people have this up already, but it seems no ones really metioned it that much.</p>
<p>godevils2001</p>
<p>True. Correlation does not mean causation, but the correlation holds up, even among the top 50 schools, all of which have a strong interest in high graduation rates.</p>
<p>And by the way, if you believe that Harvard or any top school is pretty easy once you get in, you're seriously misinformed.</p>
<p>Why do I get the uncanny sense that this is simply a smokescreen, a pre-cursor, if you like, for the UC's to get around the Supreme Court ban on affirmative action in public universities? I mean, muddle the waters so objective measures of merit (like the SAT) are discredited and lose legitimacy, and then declare, deus ex machina, a holistic method heavily skewed towards racial preferences?</p>
<p>Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but some of the school deans are truly arrogant, and would see no ethical problems with that sort of strategy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
First of all, clearly the article mentioned GPA: "Compared to high school GPA, for example, SAT scores were much more closely correlated with student's socioeconomic characteristics" and "SAT scores are based on a single sitting of three to four hours, whereas high school GPA is based on repeated sampling of student performance over several years." Perhaps you didn't actually read the article and just glanced at the small excerpt.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, I admit, I only read the summary. My point was, and is, that GPA is a great tool for measuring student achievement with identical curricula - but since there's a wide disparity in the availability quality of coursework available across schools, that it's not, by itself, that reliable for comparing student achievement. </p>
<p>
[quote]
that GPA in *college preparatory coursework *alone is a stronger factor than SAT scores alone)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ah, this isn't what you said - you didn't specify "GPA in college preparatory coursework" before, just "GPA". This changes things. As I pointed out, a 4.0 in a minimally difficult course of study (with things like "gym" and "Remedial Reading" being featured) is entirely different from a 4.0 in "college preparatory coursework." </p>
<p>But the problem still remains, which you ignored in attacking what I wrote, is that "college preparatory / AP" courses aren't available at every high school. So, what do you use to measure those kids, and to compare them objectively to those whose schools <em>did</em> offer them? Brain weight? </p>
<p>Of course, this same problem will often appear in college, and can corrupt any definition of success that includes GPA - the difficulty of curriculum chosen by a Merit Scholarship finalist who's double majoring in physics / mathematics will probably be far more difficult than someone who's majoring in "Keggers." So, the very likely compression of their relative GPA's will tend to obscure who's "successful."</p>
<p>As it has been extensively argued before on this board, colleges cannot rely on GPA alone to evaluate a student's academic credentials because of the huge variation in curricula and performance assessment standards across different high schools. </p>
<p>Having said that, I would favor replacing the current American HS diploma with a new school-leaving certificate similar to the International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma, with a standardized curriculum and external testing/grading spread out over the last two years of high school. College-bound students could stay an additional year in school (i.e. a 13th grade like in most European countries) where they would basically follow a compulsory AP/college-level curriculum, whereas kids who plan to go to a community college or straight into the job market could graduate earlier , let's say at grade 12 or even grade 11 as it is the case in the UK, with an alternative diploma that wouldn't qualify them however for direct entry into a 4-year college.</p>
<p>
[quote]
And by the way, if you believe that Harvard or any top school is pretty easy once you get in, you're seriously misinformed.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>True. I didn't spend a semester at Harvard or have lots of friends there or anything..........</p>
<p>Just about everything I might contribute has been said - so I will summarize
1) I do suspect that UC wants a more diverse student body. As I remember, WF owned up to this when they dropped the SAT requirement.
2) Most schools have a fairly narrow band for the bulk of their SAT scores. Within that band, it would not suprise me to learn that GPA was a better predictor.
3) I agree with gadad and the person who said that his kids and their friends knew who would score well on the SAT - I knew with my daughter and her friends. It measures something.
4) Recently, I heard a military standards expert speak about what they need in thier top non-officer ranks. Graduating from high school is important. Test scores are important (math and verbal), but GPA does not matter at all. The military has no time for those who do just as well with a little more time and they constantly need innovation ability - which the test scores (and the SAT) are designed to measure.
5) I have often suspected that one more measurement at age 40 should be made for the high SAT scorer. I suspect that, even considering those more interesed in kegs mentioned by gadad, most have been fairly successful in thier careers - of course, many of those had in the low 3.xs - not something that would keep one from being hired or, in most cases, our of grad school.</p>
<p>Here is a philosophical turn. If you can't pull together to succeed, reasonably, at age 18, the likelihoods of you becoming successful with that "extra bit of help" are slim, even disregarding disadvantaged backgrounds and so forth. In terms of evolution, ages 18 to 21 means reaching full adulthood, and adults, no matter how disadvantaged in prior life, cannot be viewed through the lens of "he just needed that extra push." Adults are adults. they have to succeed and fail, at least largely, on their own two feet. After all, by the time you reach early adulthood, you cannot just be construed as society's development project: you are supposed to be a productive member.</p>
<p>The SAT is NOT an IQ test. It measures a VERY narrow skill. Highly intelligent people who think outside the box or are reflective by nature, creative dont score well on these ridiculous tests. Wake Forest openly stated they have EVIDENCE that sometimes high scoring kids blow out of school and that sometimes mediocre scoring kids excel in college. </p>
<p>Its a blunt instrument used by admissions officers to explain their decisions. The only thing going for it is that it is fairly objective, meaning the same test is taken by these kids. But even the new test derived 4 years ago is not doing very well. Its longer, the section content changed and schools are struggling with the scores which have dropped nationwide. If you scored well, good for you. </p>
<p>I know kids who took expensive prep courses for three years, scored VERY high on the SAT and got into Princeton. Would I say they are more intelligent than my kid? Actually, some teachers told my kid they thought she was more intelligent than the other person with far more depth of analysis and creativity. </p>
<p>It is what it is. Its not sour grapes, but its not an IQ test. If you believe that, then either you are not very smart or your definition of intelligence is so narrow as to be laughable.</p>
<p>Being quick witted is only one measure of intelligence. Some extremely intelligent people are far more creative, think reflectively and really bring MORE TO THE TABLE than some kid who can bang out multiple choice answers a little faster. </p>
<p>Some kids can score perfectly for the questions they answer but take a tad bit longer as they contemplate answers, but perhaps dont finish....is that person less intelligent? Hardly.</p>
<p>I know people who got into other prestigious schools like Dartmouth who are in my opinion shallow with weak writing skills. But they scored well on the SAT. Its a skill. Good for them.</p>
<p>Furthermore, recent scientific studies clearly indicate that the human brain is not fully developed until age 25. Fact.</p>
<p>It really sounds like you have sour grapes. First off multiple teachers told your child that he/she was more intelligent than child B, I kind of find that hard to believe, teachers normally don't explicitly compare intelligence with other specific classmates. </p>
<p>Also I'm assuming you are speaking from the position of a parent but how would you really know how other students are? Sure they scored well on the SAT but that alone isn't getting you into the Ivy league. I'm guessing they had other qualities also whether you admit it or not.</p>
<p>I do not see sour grapes. I see a parent speaking from experience with an understanding that "intelligence" is multifaceted and the SAT only tests a small portion of the equation. </p>
<p>SAT is not an IQ test ...it is a skills test. Some folks are more skilled than others which means they are maybe more "intelligent" but not always. </p>
<p>It is not so black and white. Thank goodness or this world would be a flat boring place.</p>
<p>It is true that the SAT is a skills test, and I believe that at the higher levels, like 2100+, it cannot accurately measure how smart a person is. But if your child scores something like a 1800, I have no question that he is not as smart as someone that can manage a 2200.</p>
<p>The SAT is not an IQ test, but I believe that it does correlate with intelligence. It does not accurately measure IQ because it is possible to prepare for it and to improve the score, but it does have a strong correlation to intelligence.</p>
<p>I don't know exactly what is measured by the SAT, but I know that my son who has a 2.5 GPA in High School and is lazy and doesn't do his homework, scored very high (2070) on the SAT without prep, and scored 140 on an IQ test when he was 9 years old. It seems to me that SAT correlates very well with IQ, and that GPA is a measure of effort and compliance. My son says "Grades have nothing to do with how much you know, only wiht how much homework you do." Unfortunately for him, "success" in college will require "effort" and actually doing the work. Smarts alone will not be enough.</p>
<p>"if your child scores something like a 1800, I have no question that he is not as smart as someone that can manage a 2200."</p>
<p>You "have no question," but there's no credible study that supports your guess. Students with true LD (i.e., not a measure of intelligence whatsoever, but the way one processes information, including <em>test</em> information/questions) can result in significantly lower scores than the rest of the population, despite equal IQ. The question, though (and it should be asked of oneself): What is the form of such a particular student's LD? Is it the kind (& there are many manifestations; some people have only one aspect, not multiple) that would indeed slow one's completion of work in college, or, with distribution requirements (if the U has those), make it difficult to master work because of time frames with a full student load? As an educator who understands a true diagnosis of LD & how to differentiate that from the completely different possibility of a "lower" IQ, I nevertheless hesitate to recommend certain demanding U's for those with diagnosed LD or a history of apparent LD, in certain of those areas. Look at the programs, decide whether it's realistic to <em>attend</em>, before the student even applies.</p>
<p>For those who believe that SAT is an IQ test, or mimics it, it does not. In fact, the previous verbal portion of the SAT, very long ago, included analogies. For political reasons, that section was removed, because it's been determined that analogies DO test for IQ, and there was a big tizzy about IQ and supposed cultural bias. It's really unfortunate that the section was deleted. I say that because what happened is that analogies were then deleted from school curricula, yet analogies build skills in logic, and assist in the preparation for concept connection that one will need to do in college.</p>
<p>Anything, apparently, to be politically correct.</p>
<p>I don't have time to go into this in detail, but I did review the earlier UC study, and have quickly looked at this report. I was somewhat saddened and a little embarrassed that the narrative accompanying the earlier study, in my opinion, misrepresented its results. (I'm a UC alum.) They repeat the canard in the new report. </p>
<p>What the UC study actually showed was that SAT1+SATII scores, combined, were consistently a better predictor of college success than HS GPA alone. They obscured that by never reporting that comparison, although it was present in the data. HS GPA was better than one or the other set of SAT tests, but never better than both combined. (Of course, there's a large area of correlation - kids with high GPA do tend to have correspondingly high test scores.) </p>
<p>Many of the comments posted here were confirmed by the earlier study. Eg.: High Math SATII scores had a negative correlation with college GPA - no doubt because kids with high math skills go into science and engineering where high GPA's are harder to come by.</p>
<p>But the assertion that HS GPA is a better predictor of college success than test scores - which I used to believe too - appears to be false.</p>
<p>The new study seems to favor AP-type scores, and is moderately pro-ACT.</p>
<p>The SAT is not an IQ test? Okay, I can buy that.</p>
<p>Just admit that correlates well enough with IQ to be a meaningful proxy for intelligence. That's easy to admit for myself. I see this day in & day out. My smartest friends did well on the SAT, my less smart friends did not do as well.</p>
<p>This is why colleges use it. If it didn't predict intellect it wouldn't be used.</p>
<p>No, this is a simplistic way of viewing the SAT. In fact, many selective colleges have grown weary of it, due to variations between test performance & college performance (not just in engineering, premed, other sciences). However, they have kept it by their own admission as a winnowing tool because of the size of the applicant pool. At the moment, without it, they'd go crazy, because of application volume. It's convenient, more than accurate. Which is what UC has not taken into account yet, & what some of us on the UC thread were warning about. (The flood.)</p>
<p>I do not think the schools use it to predict intellect. They use to see if you have developed the skill sets that seem to predict success. Let's say smartness vs intellect ... two different things in my mind.</p>
<p>I have a son with an NLD (non verbal learning disorder) and had an IQ of 155 at an early age .. I predict he will not get a great score on the SAT because he does not learn the same way the neurotypical person does and is not doing well in school. He is both bored and stressed at the same time. </p>
<p>He needs something more intellectual and less rigorous. He does not need to have things repeated a zillion times ...he gets it the first time.</p>
<p>So the SAT test is flawed in predicting intellect if it leaves out large portions of our society. My son's type of NLD is manifested in about 1 in every 150 kids in the US. </p>
<p>There are IQ tests that could be used to cover all bases but they do not test for skills learned ... skills necessary for success in college ... the level of smartness ...</p>