<p>That would be fascinating, but almost impossible to get good data. Only people interested in med school take the MCATs, so we would not have an idea of what would have been the performance of those who do not take it. Some of the decision not to apply is based on gpa, so those with low gpa, even if they would have liked to go to med school, don’t take the test. So two places might have different rates of MCAT-taking among students of similar ability. The one with more selection among the undergrads (i.e. lower gpa students drop out of premed before taking MCAT) might show a higher mean MCAT, although in fact the students are equal.</p>
<p>Same problems might apply to GRE and LSAT. Few people take them just for the fun of it, and those who do probably do not do the usual studying beforehand.</p>
<p>There is excellent data showing that, at the student level, SAT’s are correlated with these other tests. Many years ago there was a detailed study that found a very high correlation between SAT and MCAT for a cohort of students. So much so that the authors suggested there was little more information to be gained by giving them the MCAT. </p>
<p>I suppose the biggest problem with using such a correlation to evaluate the educational quality of colleges is that it would imply that the education students received would be reflected in scores on these tests. The LSAT is apparently very good for predicting grades in law school and the MCAT very good for predicting grades in medical school. However, that does not mean that either is a particularly good measure of what one learned in college. The subject tests of the GREs are probably better tests of certain kinds of learning that took place in college, but perhaps not at all what the professors would have considered most important. I am sure Caltech professors are most interested in their graduates depth of understanding of scientific principles, ability to analyze data, and design experiments. These are extremely difficult to test in a GRE format. Some highly selective graduate schools do not even use the GRE, they just are not interested in the results.</p>
<p>Token. I mentioned Caltech, MIT, and Harvey Mudd because those are usually the three top colleges overall in percent of students who get PhD’s, and their grads are not accurately characterized as doing so because they could not get jobs as engineers and computer scientists. The data hardly supports the contention that these students are getting research degrees because they cannot get jobs. It does not support the contention that they would have been able to get jobs had they gone to a major university (Caltech? MIT?). </p>
<p>They are getting research degrees because they are interested in the fields, and many of them want research jobs for which a doctorate degree is an entry requirement.</p>
<p>High rates of PhD attainment imply a talented student body and an academic orientation. Many other colleges have equally talented students, but students who are not as interested in the sorts of things that people with PhDs do. </p>
<p>High rates of professional degree attainment imply a talented student body and a preprofessional orientation. Many other colleges have equally talented students, but students who are not as interested in the sorts of things that people with professional degrees do. </p>
<p>Students who find themselves interested in the same things as students at a high-PhD-rate college might like that college, and get more out of it than if they went to an, equally rigorous, high-professional-degree-rate college. Students who feel at home at a high-professional-degree-rate college might be better off there than at one of the pre graduate places.</p>
<p>Side note. At the elite colleges, which include essentially all the places we have been discussing, MOST students go on to graduate education. So if they are only doing this because they cannot get jobs, it is at least as prevalent at the preprofessional schools. If you look into it, you will find that graduates of HYPSM who do NOT get advanced degrees are in the minority. On the other hand, at colleges lower in prestige and admission difficulty, for example, those lower on the USNews list, advanced degree attainment is much less common. Does this mean these students graduate with better job prospects???</p>