A graph showing me that SAT scores are highly correlated with getting PhDs is not very convincing. You need a good SAT score to get into many top colleges, and

A graph showing me that SAT scores are highly correlated with getting PhDs is not very convincing. You need a good SAT score to get into many top colleges, and you need to have gone to a good college to get into many PhD programs. They'd be correlated even if SAT scores were completely uninformative about one's natural talent or innate abilities. Even something like patents or high-percentile income would still be correlated, merely because SAT scores gate access to some pathways to achieving those things.