Are the SAT and ACT accurate predictors of college success?

I do realize that lots of people who have scored high on these exams have gone on to do very well in college, is this always the case? Do most people who score low on these exams do poorly in college?

When I was in high school, I got a 23 on the ACT without studying at all... a 23 is a little above average... I bought an ACT study guide by Kaplan and, being the lazy guy that I am, only studied a few pages of the english section... My english score improved to a 30 (the 98 or 99 percentile) and my composite score was a 25 (I didn't study for any of the other 3 sections.)

-I am going somewhere with this, trust me...

At the end of my first semester of college a few years ago, I earned a 3.8 GPA. Over the years, due to health problems and other factors I will not get into, my GPA dropped a little. I took this past Fall Semester off and started classes again this past January. Ad mid-semester in March, I got straight A's.

I have become friends with this girl in one of my classes who is a freshman. Last year, as a high school senior, she scored a 27 on the ACT without studying... A&M College Station sent her a letter saying that if she applied, she would automatically be accepted, but she declined.

This past Fall, she earned a 1.5 GPA. Yeah, you heard me right. If she doesn't improve, they are going to kick her out after this semester.

Do you all think that some colleges place too much emphasis on test scores? What do you think?

Peace,

thought that about those ridiculous, bullshit tests. I say ALL standardized tests, frankly, are bullshit and should be scrapped. There are people who do very well on tests who suck academically, and people who don't do well on those kinds of things at all but are academic aces. I've known plenty of both. The stupid tests don't measure things like persistence and work ethic.

I've never understood why people's futures are so dependent on a goddamned test, and why so much emphasis is put on them. And they also don't measure the intangibles that are a big help with academic success, or the obstacles a lot of people have overcome in their lives that will make them an excellent student.

I have a way-above-average verbal intelligence and a very-below-average non-verbal intelligence, in other words I've struggled all my life with a severe learning disability and I've always resented those goddamned tests because they never measured the real me. I did better in college than what those fucking tests would have ever predicted, even though I took all of the necessary preparation for the stupid things.

... who got a 27 on the ACT but earned a 1.5 GPA told me something like "I'm just a f*cking lazy person."

If someone could design a test that measured work ethic, that would be helpful. Then again, an admission's counselor should be able to look at a person's application to see how hard of a worker they are...

By the way... is there any way to move message board threads... I think this post would be appropriate in a different forum...

But I don't think any kind of "test" to measure work ethic or anything else would work, either, you should be able to tell from actually looking at a person's actual work and activities and references, etc., never mind the score of any goddamned test. And that also goes for those fucking "personality" tests many potential employers have you take, now THOSE are REALLY full of shit!

Is she not applying herself at all? Is she partying too much?

Have to eliminate external variables before a decision is possible.

Colleges should NEVER go on test scores alone, but sometimes college success can be fairly unpredictable.

College presents many opportunities and pitfalls. Most people perform on a level consistent with their high school performance, and some exceed their previous performance. However, some people succumb to unhealthy temptations and poor habits in college, probably due to the almost complete freedom that students have. Some get too into drugs and alcohol, some people have poor time management without their parents there to tell them what to do.

Anyway, test scores are important, especially considering the highly variable quality of high school education in this country, but they should only be one of MANY factors involved in college admissions.

SAT's only predict how well a student will do IN THEIR FIRST YEAR. Beyond that, the SAT's are useless and even the people who make the test say that.

The main use for standardized test scores, in my opinion, is in comparing students from two different high schools.

But once again, they should only be used as one of MANY factors in deciding admission.

SAT's etc do have a use so they can be useful. However, their usefulness derive from their ability to predict the performance in the 1st year of college. Predicting performance in the 1st year of college is the ONLY AREA these tests have any predictive value. Even ETS, the corporation that makes the test, agrees with this.

So, yes these tests can be used to compare students from different HS's but it's important to remember that the only difference that can be gleaned from this is how well they will do in their 1st year of college.

they are NOT just one of many other variables, too many places put far too much emphasis on them.

I think there's a trend developing that's moving away from such tests--there are a few schools starting to not require them at all

Some schools do put way too much emphasis on the test scores, but I think anyone who excels in other areas and does poorly on the test can still get into a "good" school, if he/she makes an effort to apply to a decent number of schools.

just because schools put far too much emphasis on the goddamned tests than they should? Working hard to get good grades and being involved in activities and volunteering should be enough, frankly. As far as I'm concerned, that's laziness and short-sightedness on the part of schools.

Unfortunately all high schools in this country are not created equal. A student from a poorer school district may not have the opportunity to take multiple AP classes and get involved in interesting activities that a student in a wealthy school has. A good SAT/ACT score may be the only chance that a student from a poorer school district has to get in a good school.

If your friend has a 1.5 that is a serious lack of effort.

... last semester she was either a Bio or Chem major... she's a freshman... but she didn't like it (obviously) so now she is a theater major...

There is a saying out there that says: If you don't know what to do with your life, majoring in engineering is the quickest way to fail out.

I majored in Math, German, and Economics so I have some experience with different areas.

I'm not going to say that Liberal Arts are a breeze, for instance the only Philosophy course that I was able to do better than an A- in was Logic. There are no automatic A's. But by and large I have found that one has to be really horrible in a Liberal Arts class before they break out the C's. In sciences I have found that one must work really hard to get beyond a B. There also seems to be more of a "weed them out" ethic in the sciences.

SAT I

I just pulled this up from a quick google. I don't know what's out there that might disagree.

Colleges have to differentiate somehow. I think tests are probably valid as one criterion out of a group; and each criterion should carry a weight.

Speaking as a former SAT/ACT tutor, I've learned from experience that the tests, contrary to what many people believe, are a good indicator of innate intelligence, and willingness and ability to learn. Nothing more, nothing less.

Of course highly intelligent people have a distinct advantage over others, since they they generally don't have to study as hard. However, that same advantage will apply to them once they get into college.

Many very intelligent students develop a poor work ethic as a result of being able to skate by with minimal effort, and I suspect that's what happened to your friend.

From my personal experience, the ones who do best on these tests are usually students with the best work ethic or smart kids. Still, study habits can change, people can become more motivated, well-prepared people can screw up. Colleges usually give more weight to grades and the interview, except in the case of very high scores, where they might overlook bad grades, realizing the student was probably bored in HS.

Edit: spelling.

my footsteps. Everything I have read indicates that HS grades are a much better indicator of success in college. It doesn't matter much the type of HS. It seems that just the ambition and study habits to get good grades matter. Take this opinion for what it is worth. I can't find links right now.

is socioeconomic status. The College Board tries hard to make the tests race-, gender-, and income level- neutral, but repeated studies show that they are only partially successful. Wealthy kids go to better funded schools, with more resources, more college prep classes, more counselors to encourage them to take those courses. And there are prep classes offered by Kaplan and others, including SAT summer camps where kids learn strategies to maximize their time, eliminate the attractive distractors from the multiple choice sections, and have the chance to practice.

On the GPA issue, you can't simply look at a number and claim that a student is slacking or doing great. Anybody who has gone to college knows that on every campus certain departments are either very tough or very easy. I work at a major research university and there is very little grade inflation in some departments. Anybody wanting to be a math, physics or chemistry major here is a masochist and any GPA over 3.00 is a mark of honor. On the other hand, there a couple of departments (unnamed) that liberally award A+ grades and earning less than a 4.00 on their courses is unusual and the person must have been a slacker.

... if standardized test are supposed to be accurate predictors of first year grades, it is very strange that someone can get a good ACT score of 27 and earn a 1.5 GPA their first semester...

college, particularly the first semester, can be a big shock to the system. and getting good grades (or, ok, even mediocre grades in your example) still requires a modicum of effort. no ACT or SAT score is going to reflect future effort...

was an analogy. i don't remember it exactly, but it involved

boat:regatta as ...

for the love of god!

white gal, the daughter of two teachers, and even I wouldn't have had a clue as to what a "regatta" was back in high school when I took the goddamned tests, lol!

That reminds me of the Black Psychology course I took my freshman year of college. The prof was trying to demonstrate just how culturally biased the tests really were by giving us a "black" SAT. Not only did all the whites totally bomb it, even those of us who had black friends and considered ourselves "hip" to black culture didn't know what the hell it was all about. The black students were rolling in the aisle with laughter, and it was all the prof could do to keep from joining in (she was black). We REALLY learned a lesson that day, even the conservative students had some scales fall from their eyes.

I was always a bit lazy back in high school in the 80s, but I got almost 1300 on my SATs and didn't have to study hard to get good grades. I had a friend who worked his butt off to get good grades, took SAT prep classes, study vocab, etc. He improved a lot in his 3 times taking the test and ended up with around 1150. I was under the weather when I took the test and got my near 1300.

He continued to work hard in college and consistently made the dean's list. I was still a lazy ass in college and floated by with 2.5s and 2.7s. I only studied when I was inspired or in the mood and I always did well when I wanted to... but, those times were few & far between.

They are certainly not the indicator they might have been many years ago, with all the compromises they've made on different tests for a wide variety of reasons.

When I was in school (think 30 years ago to graduation), I went to an all girl's college prep school, whose sole purpose was to make leaders of us all. In many ways, the experience did that, in many other ways, it alienated quite a few of us.

I hated homework and never really did it. I'm talking about junior and regular high school--6 years of not doing what every other girl was studiously doing. It showed in my marks (I graduated at the bottom of the class), but not in the testing. I was in the 98 percentile, and got lots of offers for college, but I only applied to one, and got into that one. (Couldn't afford to stay, though--it was $8000 a year even 30 years ago!) If I had been in any other school, I would have still goofed off, but because I was still smart, my grades wouldn't have suffered as much from a less demanding school. I remember the guidance counselor trying to convince me that I should apply to several state colleges, fearing that I wouldn't get my first choice. I also remember telling them I wanted to apply to UCLA, on the other side of the country, and that idea was squelched by them. It also happened that later on when I did go back to college, I maintained a 4.0 gpa.

I think that there are several different kinds of people as students: those with average intelligence who get high grades because they apply themselves and are determined to succeed, relative to the acquired skills they have; those with high intelligence who don't apply themselves and end up skating much of their lives with some brilliance, but lack of applicable skills; those with high intelligence who are simply not challenged enough, and end up being the world's greatest underachievers; and those with high intelligence who do apply themselves and end up in very successful lives and careers, but who probably never had any time to learn how to play.

I blew out the SATs, and believe I worked my ass off in college, but couldn't pull a decent grade to save my life.

I do just fine at my difficult college and excel in the work I do.... *Shrug* I still do bad on tests and get nothing but A's on papers. THAT says something about a person. :D

Tests mean NOTHING. I'm a slow reader, but a morally good and ethical worker.

Got like 1250 if I remember and dropped out after a year and a half of college. Partied it up and drank, never got to class, and when she did slept...

Then again I've always been somewhat decent with academics, I have graduate with honors from high school and college without studying that much and doing the sleeping through classes thing. Important classes to go to and stay awake are the review classes for the tests.

had a 3.98 average. This was in community college. I went on to UCSB and finished with a 3.8 overall. These tests do not measure motivation, determination amd applying yourself to the subject matter. In other predictive tests like the LSAT, I received an just average score but my GPA got me into law school. I finished my first year of law school 8th out of 112 and made the Dean's List. They are B.S.

They're just such flawed tests, and so incredibly biased toward the wealthy. And that's not even getting into how they reward certain types of thinking (ie, being creative is not going to help you.)

I remember my junior year of high school, one of my classmates spent $100,000 on a big time tutor (I went to one of those NY prep schools, so believe me, this kind of crap happened) and I still did better than him, despite not studying a minute.

I went to the kind of college where everyone had a really high score, and lord knows there was a very wide range of grades, so no, i don't think there was any correlation. Except maybe those who got 1600s--I think they're the kind of perfectionists who are going to get good grades/scores no matter what.

... college grades. The National Center for Fair & Open Testing studies the use of testing in employment as well as education and other applications.

According to its webpage on the validity of the SAT "college aptitude" test, at http://www.fairtest.org/facts/satvalidity.html

"SAT I: A Faulty Instrument For Predicting College Success

The SAT I is designed to predict first-year college grades - it is not validated to predict grades beyond the freshman year, graduation rates, pursuit of a graduate degree, or for placement or advising purposes. However, according to research done by the tests' manufacturers, class rank and/or high school grades are still both better predictors of college performance than the SAT I....

the predictive ability (or r squared) of the SAT I is just .22, meaning the test explains only 22% of the variation in freshman grades. With a correlation of .54, high school grades alone do a better job, explaining almost 30% of the variance in first-year college performance. ...

Validity research at individual institutions illustrates the weak predictive ability of the SAT. ... University of California (UC) President Richard Atkinson presented a proposal in February 2001 to drop the SAT I requirement for UC applicants. The results from the UC validity study, which tracked 80,000 students from 1996-1999, highlighted the weak predictive power of the SAT I... After taking SAT II and HSGPA into account, SAT I scores improved the prediction rate by a negligible 0.1% (from 21.0% to 21.1%), making it a virtually worthless additional piece of information. Furthermore, SAT I scores proved to be more susceptible to the influence of the socioeconomic status of an applicant than either the SAT II or HSGPA."

and were started for a very good reason. The SAT came out of WWII. The GI Bill had been passed and when the war ended many soldiers wanted to go to college. Before that era the only people who went to college were people who were born in well heeled families. Thus colleges had no real way to evaluate transcripts and grades from ordinary schools. The SATs ushered in the first era of merit on many college campuses. While many were left out for poor and middle class whites this was a great thing. People like Bill Clinton never would have been in Yale without the advent of SATs.

The problem now is that the tests can offen be prepped for and there is such a massive difference between even public schools now. When I graduated high school I had the highest SAT score my year but it was only 1300. I think I also beat the preceeding year too so it wasn't just a bad year at my school. But, my score was not that high for the college I went to. When I graduated college I took the GREs. I got a 680 and two 800's. One difference was that my high school offered no prep at all for the SATs and the prep courses were too much money for me to take. My college did offer preps for the GRE. I also got a way better education at my college than I did at my high school. They are helpful but they are not dispositive and they are way too easy to manipulate.

There also is a provable gender bias. Men outscore women on the SAT but women do better in college. Both factors have been true for years.

though test prep companies have existed from nearly the beginning

also, it isn't quite true that only wealthy undeserving types went to the big time schools pre-SATs. college admissions was a very different animal, but there were still high-achieving disadvantaged students in the Ivys. Of course, not too many minorities...

But most of those stivers that got into the ivy leagues did so only due to being noticed by an alum of those schools. Thus they were still well connected.

some also came in through "feeder" schools or places like Bronx Science in NY

It's a magic word because nobody EVER has really quantified it, yet its mythology has been spread successfully (and very profitably) by the "aptitude" testing industry. Have you ever read, "The Big Test: The Secret History of the American Meritocracy", by Nicholas Lemann? It's an unauthorized history of the Educational Testing Service. A long, well-chosen excerpt is online at

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0374299846/ref=lib_rd_ss_TR01/002-6089313-2577535?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S007&ns=1

It summarizes the original 1945 vision of ETS's patrician founder:

"to mount a vast scientific project that will categorize, sort, and route the entire population... by administering a series of multiple-choice mental tests to everyone, and then by suggesting, on the basis of the scores, what each person's role in society should be--suggestions everyone will surely accept gratefully."

I've seen both sides of it. Lower scores and high grades and high scores and low grades. Also many cases of high scores and high grades too to be fair. Personally, I made a 31, which is fairly high. Grade wise, the first year, I had like a 2.5 or something. You still have to make the effort and there is a form of intelligence which is NOT measured on such tests. Some public schools, like A&M that you mentioned, go way too much by test scores. It should never be a single determining factor for admissions.

... that she had not even applied to A&M College Station... they simply received her ACT score and offered her admission, along with some scholarship money too, I believe...

Only an idiot would use only one indicator, because different indicators might (generally) yield different info. A standardized test (such as SAT) avoids eg grade inflation possibly implicit in GPAs.

Sure, students with poor SATs may do better than those with great SATs. Admissions offices, instructors, and college administrations are already aware of this. But I taught for 20 years, and (as a crude generality) I'd much rather teach a class with average combined SAT score 1200 than one with average combined score 800.

and what's worse is that these tests are timed. On the math part of the ACTs, they allow you 60 minutes on the math section--with 60 questions. I am horrible at math. I completed about 26 of the math questions when time was up. I did horrible on that section. I ended up getting a 21 on my ACTs.

Now, as a senior in college, my average GPA is 3.2. I hope this answers your questions.

I scored pretty well in the 50th percentile on both tests (forget my exact scores), but the college I attended looked at my actual academic transcript and decided to admit me under a 'bridges' program for minorities (affirmative action--- that's right). I graduated with a 3.73 cumulative GPA in history with 2 minors--- political science and bio.

Some people just don't test well...

I missed the early deadline, so I had to wake up at 4:00AM to drive to Holdingford for the test. During the math portion I fell asleep for about ten minutes. :D

But I failed every class but one in my first semester in college. I was drunk about three days out of the week, and exhausted and/or hungover for the other four.

The test is a measurement of how good you are at taking the test. Unless you're set on some sort of particular Ivy League existence, I wouldn't waste more than a few seconds thinking about the thing. My brother got a 35, and he's about as poor a student as I am. :D

Missouri has the Bright Flight program where a student that gets a 32 or better gets $2,000.00 per year for undergrad studies at any state university. With other scholarships, my son had a full ride to UM Rolla - an engineering school and my daughter got her Bachelors at UMSL and is doing her Masters work at St. Louis University. This money came in VERY handy.

Scored 760 on the verbal portion and 600 in math, which basically falls in line with how I've done in High School--I'm pretty good w/ vocabularly, definately better at English than Math..

I waited until about a week before the test to begin studying but a put in a bunch of hours.

A few of my friends put in alot more time on their school work and are more perfectionistic than I am, yet they don't do well on standardized tests.

Some people do well on standardized tests and others just don't. I don't think it's a fool-proof indicator of how well people will do in college, but I do think it's a valuable component to be considered.

I scored a 1350 - graduated (undergrad) with a 2.4 GPA (Majored in beer). My husband scored a 1560 and never finished college, but was a C student when he did go to class (he majored in beer too). I did two years post bac many years later and had a 4.0. Maturity in my case was a far greater indicator in how well I did.

And this is coming from a kid that got 1450 on the first practice run and a friend who has 1550 and is planning to go the MIT.

I think that they are, at most, politically correct IQ tests. Just like IQ tests, they measure only one of the many factors that determine "success" (assuming success is something objective). But it is only one aspect, measured very incorrecly, and not necessarily the most important of all aspects.

And if you guessed it, he is in a very good economic condition, tho I also admit he's the smartest guy I know.

you don't get accepted, so we really have no way to tell how someone who does very poorly on the test would have done in college. I scored average on my ACT and now I'm working on a doctoral dissertation. I really don't know what that says.

I got a 890 on my SAT's, but graduated from college Cum Laude (3.4 or 3.5 i think)...

for the SATs.

I couldn't be arsed and got 1300 something but had a 3.8 GPA in highschool. I went on and got a 3.8 GPA in college, 4.0 in grad school.

My brother studied for months before the SATs and got 1700. He had a 2.7 GPA in high school and was on probation in college for three out of four years. He barely, barely, barely graduated at all.

No standardized test will predict your willingness to work and learn. I've taught kids who got 400 on the SATs. They had problems but they were on the right track to success. They went to shitty high schools and their first year of college was largely remedial but every time you walked into a classroom you could see they were going to succeed come hell or high water.

Who deserves the shot? The kid who got 400 but will work themselves to death or the trust fund slug who just wants to drink beer?

I was just going to come in and say test scores are no indication of a student's ability to be a student (cf. my college days). Some people test well, some don't, and neither can determine the quality of the student. Like in anything else, inspiration will get you nowhere without hard work in school.

It'll be funny to see kids say "I got a 1500" which on the new scale will quallify as average.

Around a hundred short of the max. All those 8's playing around in my head.

:-)

especially for state schools.

How else do you think admissions officers can compare 30,000 applications?

You think that state schools have the time or budget to carefully look over each application they receive?

Yeah, right.

...

no point to this post, just thought i'd brag.

... scored a 32 on the ACT...

These tests measure knowledge and critical thinking skills learned through the years. If a person is capable of being "lazy" academically and still maintain a good grade average in high school, they will likely score well on the ACT or SAT. As you noted, sometimes there are factors that change an individuals ability to perform. These may be physical traumas, the onset of mental illness, the experimentation with various drugs that are probably freely available on campus, or even simple immaturity.

The tests have value, because people at age 18 do not suddenly decide whether or not they are prepared to learn. If not prepared thoughout the secondary years, it is likely they will not be able to handle the rigors of post-secondary education. Of course, their aptitudes are most likely tilted in another direction. Not everyone can, or should compete in the same areas. Many artists, for example, considered genius caliber, may not be able to complete a simple paragraph or tell you where the Dominican Republic is on a map, but this does not in any way denigrate their skills or contributions.