<p>This is strange conclusion. There are many other explanations.</p>
<p>Example: High SAT scores also has a corelation with higher family incomes. Wouldn't higher income families have higher graduation rates? In fact, I would bet that if family income were corelated with graduation rates, it would produce higher results than either SATs or GPAs! If my conclusion is correct, why not simply use the tax returns of parents as the main admission factor? This way, you probably will not only have higher graduation rates but also higher donations from richer alumni?</p>
<p>The study lacks external validity. Generalizations are based on the assumption that graduation rates are the criterion for assessing success in college. Colleges vary in difficulty; some colleges are harder than others. An individual with a degree signifies that he or she met the expectations of that particular school. That doesn't mean he or she would have been as successful elsewhere.</p>
<p>Thanks for the criticisms of the author's reasoning about this issue. I think those are valid criticisms. I would like to ask again if any has ever seen a study of the correlation between family income and high school grades, which I have real-world reason to believe is quite strong.</p>
<p>It is certainly true that the SAT is not always the best measure of intelligence/success in college...</p>
<p>However, standardizing GPA is ridiculously impossible. I know that you are supposedly evaluated within the context of your school, but adcoms don't really know every school all that well and I feel like that puts students coming from schools with lots of grade deflation at a major disadvantage.... For example, I could have stayed at public school and gotten like a 6.0 weighted GPA or something ridiculous. Instead, I'm at a private school maintaining all As and A-s to get about a 3.8 / 3.9 UW GPA (we don't weight)... of course, I believe my school is preparing for college much better than one of the local public high schools could of, but I'm sort of doubtful that adcoms will be able to realize how much harder my school is...</p>
<p>I am a big believer in SATs. Reason: I personally aced all standardized tests (as in 99 percentile in every test I took). However, I also know it is not a measure of intelligence. Here is why: my kid's PSAT score: 150. Spent $700 bucks in SAT classes. Score: 2000. Pumped in another $1500 in 1-on-1 SAT class. Score: 2250. So if SAT is a measure of IQ, his IQ went up significantly for a small sum of $2200. Who says money can't buy everything?</p>
<p>I think that Dispatche's comment is to be considered. The most shocking example of this is the classic "bad freshman year" problem. Many an intelligent student has bombed their freshman year and then gone on to ace their subsequent years when they find new motivation. These students also tend to score highly on the SATs (from my experience). These are also precisely the students that will excel in college, since they will find things to engage them.</p>
<p>GPA, while not standardized, does in fact measure work ethic within the context of the school. In highschool, it is generally not "hard" to get A's (and yes I do realize that this varies from school to school), rather it takes TIME to get A's. I don't think that anyone here is going to argue against the notion that the student who always studies for tests weeks in advance will most likely score A's on the tests. And if he hands in all of his homework, he will likely mark an A for the course. On the flip side, the student who crams the night before for his History midterm because he spent the past two weeks reading up on his passion for Biology will probably score a B at highest if he hadn't been paying much attention previously. Therefore it follows what I stated before: that GPA is a measure of work ethic within the context of the school.</p>
<p>On the same note, SATs measure the skills that are generally required to succeed in college: reading comprehension, basic mathematics and the logic to apply it, and grammatical fluency. This is why the SATs are generally called an "aptitude" test, although the acronym meaning has long since been stripped from the official title. A low GPA means that in HIGHSCHOOL the student did not have a work ethic in line with the school's requirements. A low SAT means that the student lacks the ability to efficiently put forth those skills that the SAT tests in an environment when those skills are needed at the ready. When you look at it that way, which would you rather have attending your college?</p>
<p>Of course, the final factor to address is the presence of "bad test takers". Yes, I believe they exist. The pressure that the SAT puts on an individual is pretty immense (for most people, I'd venture to guess), and this can cause the mind to malfunction or freeze up in ways that cause the bubbled answer not to be the choice that you would normally choose in a more laid back atmosphere. That said, I also firmly believe that at the very least, more than half of those who claim to be bad test takers really just don't have the same aptitude as the "good test takers". Moreover, even the ones that truly are "bad test takers" need to realize that if they don't function well under pressure, then they will be at a serious advantage in both college and professional life. Therefore, if the SAT does not precisely measure scholastic aptitude because of the presence of "bad test takers", then it at the very least measures scholastic aptitude in a college or professional setting.</p>
<p>Of course, this is all based on my personal experience and opinion, so take it for what it's worth.</p>
<p>Yes, SAT speaks a lot in college and professional life but since it is a standardized test, the test must be built on a strict model or frame. And once you know its model such as its questions, the way the questions are produced based on certain passages,and the way the answers are offered, you will realize the same pattern comes again and again under some kind of disguise that makes you nervous and stressed out. I don't know how SAT plays in professional life but once you the model, it's easy to hit the score.</p>
<p>Taking a look at self-reported grade average by juniors taking the fall 2006 PSAT test we find:
A+ 4.2% (61,875)
A 18.4% (271,774)
A- 19.6% (288,726)</p>
<p>These figures must be taken with a large grain of salt because they are self reported, but they at least give us some idea of GPAs of college applicants.</p>
<p>This cohort moved on to become the class of 2008 for which college board reports SAT summary data. It is interesting to note that while 61,875 reported A+ grades, these are the numbers for college-bounds seniors scoring 750 or more
24,569 Critical reading
40,466 Math
22,035 Writing</p>
<p>For Writing only 63,367 scored 700 or above.
Also, on Writing 187,230 scored 600 or above versus 330,000 reporting A or A+ grades.</p>
<p>My point is that GPA alone creates a log jam of students with essentially equal grades, while SAT scores provide a more stratified profile of students. It is heartening to know that SAT scores can provide value to college admissions committees. How the adcoms choose to use or weight SAT scores is another question. I get the feeling that SAT scores become a stumbling block to schools that are trying to create a socio-economic profile that reflects their image of what the student body, and country, should look like.</p>
<p>Graduation rates are important, especially in the economic times in which we live. If we think of seats at tier-1 colleges as a scarce (and expensive) resource, then the school can maximize the usage of that resource by graduating students in four years - or less. The student that requires 5 or 6 years takes away a seat from an incoming student, and the student that fails to graduate can end up squandering the valuable resources the school could be offering to someone else.</p>
<p>^pity the poor kids (mine) who go to HS's with grade deflation......many, many B+/A- AP/honors students with SAT>1450.....you would be shocked at the massive waitlists/rejections in Top 20 schools....GPA still rules.....</p>
<p>I agree with gutter. I am a classic example of an intelligent student who bombed freshman year. It's just that I've changed throughout high school and I feel that my freshman year is no longer relevant. Junior year I scraped out a 98 but my overall average remains in the low 90's because of freshman year.. I'm not in the top 10% of my grade but I have the highest test scores. I just feel that some people change over the course of 4 years and the kid who didn't care about school as a freshman or sophomore may turn out to be a real scholar in junior and senior year. For people who turn over a new leaf like that their freshman and sophomore grades may have no bearing on their college success whatsoever.</p>
<p>I think that colleges know about the "bad freshman year" students. I was one of those, and I got into plenty of top schools with a 3.4 high school GPA and 2320 SAT (in fact, the effect of my freshman year on my overall GPA was inflated by my finishing HS in three years). I now attend Duke, and I must say that my impressions is that just about everybody I've spoke to had a 4.0 (or close to that) in high school, and the most intelligent are those who had very good test scores as well. It's difficult to make an analysis of the high SAT/low GPA type simply because I haven't encountered very many. I can't say whether this is due to the rarity of that type of student or their bad admissions results. Maybe my luck with admissions was not similar to other students with high SATs and low GPAs.</p>
<p>I didn't read most of the posts here but from my experience, SAT definitely reflects more accurately the difference between me and my classmates. A lot of American HS have huge grade inflation and mine was one of them. You wouldn't know my math was top of my class if there's no SAT. Quite a few classmates that got As were actually quite weak in math. Even though SAT I is a joke and SAT II score is a better indicator, it's still way better than those grades from my HS here (I did last two years of HS in the US).</p>
<p>Take a look at the UC schools; Berkeley and UCLA both have 99% of students in the top-10%. Yet, 20-25% of them got SAT scores in the 500-600 range for each section. It just doesn't make sense to me <em>in general</em> (I am fine with few exceptions) that your grades say you are "good at math" when you get below 600 on SAT I math.</p>
<p>I grew up in Hong Kong and we had a public exam with huge grade deflation; even international science/math olympians would get a handful of Cs and Ds. So this can be a reason why I am cynical about all these straight As in HS here.</p>
<p>I think the SAT helps more than it hurts...people who aren't the typical "honors/AP" mold (at least in the beginning of their career & were stereotyped) can score well and show their abilities in an independent method. It also exposes cheating in GPAs. Finally, I think SAT IIs and AP scores are very valuable.</p>
<p>two examples: 1) a girl I know has close to a 98 UW, 105 W average, known as the 'honors type' at my school...yet, she scored a little better than a 1400 out of <em>2400</em>. Her SAT II scores are about 400. She's just a "really bad test taker" (her words)</p>
<p>2) another girl, with about a 95 UW, 98 W was in about half honors classes, smart girl but most people believe she's not the 'honors type' and figure they won't recommend her for her honors, even though her grades suggest it. She got close to a 1350/1600, and 750+ on two science SAT II.</p>
<p>Now, in most cases, people would rather take Girl 2. Yet, if it was GPA alone, even JUST at my school, girl 1 would be accepted every time.</p>
<p>You raise intereting points, but a poster on cc who's D did ok on the SAT, but not great, was a spring admit to Cal (meaning lower end of applicant pool, usually bcos of test scores), but has a 3.9 in classes taken at Columbia......Girl was also ELC, so top gpa...</p>
<p>"SAT measures intelligence & GPA represents work ethic."</p>
<p>May I differ on the above. Kids in Honors and AP classes work their butts off and get Bs, where as smart kids in regular classes pull As without even doing homework. GPA is a massive disincentive for student to take higher level classes. It kills me to see GPA and Class rank used to keep really hardworking, smart students excluded from Dean's list and internships and scholarships because they take tougher classes.</p>
<p>Replace "minority" with socio-economic level. Lots and Lots of minority students are now children of college educated blacks and Latinos (my daughter included.) "Minorities" is yesterday's question; Today's question is what is the correlations between uneducated parents and educated parents (ghetto, redneck, wetback etc) SOOOO many minorities have climbed the socio-economic ladder, that any who use "I'm discriminated against because I'm [insert minority group]" really is just whining and needs to get their butt in gear. </p>
<p>Parents who don't make their kids sit down and do their homework come in all sizes, and colors. So let's skip the "minority" whine.</p>
<p>My brother sent his kid to SAT prep classes and tutors for over a year and took the test 3 times and the overall score went up several hundred points. Now the college board has agreed to only send the highest scores to colleges. So what does the test measure? The willingness and ability of parents to spend money to have their kids professionally prepared to take the test. The whole thing is now a sham.</p>
<p>"SAT measures intelligence & GPA represents work ethic."
I can't let this go either. I did well on my SATs because I think too much and studied. I didn't score perfect because I think too much... again...
SAT=standardized /= intelligence</p>
<p>The SAT is definitely a test that can be fiddled with--prep courses will usually raise scores significantly. </p>
<p>That being said, I find that a lot of the kids with high GPAs and low SAT scores tend to be the ones that have high GPAs because they don't take the most rigorous course, suck up to their teachers for better grades in subjectively graded courses (english, foreign language, history), or are just kids who have achieved through a lot of hardwork rather than natural aptitude.</p>
<p>That being said, nobody in the working community cares how hard you work as long as you get the job done. Mainly, people excel at upper echelons due to their natural aptitude for their respective fields. </p>
<p>Hence, I think that the SAT is extremely valuable (this is a biased opinion, as I have always had 99th percentile scores).</p>