4 ms·

Just like how SATs are a poor standard for acceptance in Universities. Numbers cannot consistently predict success, work ethic, perseverance, etc. 'nuff said.

barry-cotter 17y ago
You don't say. They do appear to be at least as predictive as High School GPA though. These things are useful when dealing with populations, less so with individuals. To a college administration bureaucrat you are not some unique snowflake sothey want all the information they can get to tell them if you're worth admitting and the SAT is clearly worth considering. Predictor R Predictors R HSGPA 0.54 (0.36) SAT-M, SAT-CR 0.51 (0.32) SAT-CR 0.48 (0.29) HSGPA, SAT-M, SAT-CR 0.61 (0.44) SAT-M 0.47 (0.26) SAT-CR, SAT-M, SAT-W 0.53 (0.35) SAT-W 0.51 (0.33) HSGPA, SAT-CR, SAT-M, SAT-W 0.62 (0.46) http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=node/216 http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=node/216
- kingkilr 17y ago
  The SAT only has any correlation with anything for someones freshman year of college, afterwords high school GPA is a far better predictor.
- byrneseyeview 17y ago
  It's true that SAT scores correlate poorly with college performance -- but that's because someone can be admitted with, e.g., a bad SAT and a great writing sample, or a great SAT and a diffident high school record. Take a middle-tier state school: if someone has a Harvard-worthy GPA and chose the mid-tier school, it's probably because of other factors that kept them out of Harvard -- and those other factors will probably lead to a lower GPA. If another student's SAT's would imply community college, you might expect them to have some kind of focus or determination that would let them perform at the state school level (and you could detect that determination in their extracurriculars or in student interviews). So this is only surprising data if you try hard not to think about it. What's amazing is that a four-hour test has almost as much predictive value as four years of GPA data -- is four years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars really a good investment, when the result is a ~20% more accurate measure of your abilities? Doubtful.
Eliezer 17y ago
By "consistently predict" you mean "perfectly predict"? That's a little straw, don't you think? Perhaps you meant to say, "The correlation is a mere..." followed by some low number.

barry-cotter 17y ago

You don't say. They do appear to be at least as predictive as High School GPA though. These things are useful when dealing with populations, less so with individuals. To a college administration bureaucrat you are not some unique snowflake sothey want all the information they can get to tell them if you're worth admitting and the SAT is clearly worth considering. Predictor R Predictors R HSGPA 0.54 (0.36) SAT-M, SAT-CR 0.51 (0.32) SAT-CR 0.48 (0.29) HSGPA, SAT-M, SAT-CR 0.61 (0.44) SAT-M 0.47 (0.26) SAT-CR, SAT-M, SAT-W 0.53 (0.35) SAT-W 0.51 (0.33) HSGPA, SAT-CR, SAT-M, SAT-W 0.62 (0.46) http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=node/216 http://www.polysyllabic.com/?q=node/216

kingkilr 17y ago
The SAT only has any correlation with anything for someones freshman year of college, afterwords high school GPA is a far better predictor.
byrneseyeview 17y ago
It's true that SAT scores correlate poorly with college performance -- but that's because someone can be admitted with, e.g., a bad SAT and a great writing sample, or a great SAT and a diffident high school record. Take a middle-tier state school: if someone has a Harvard-worthy GPA and chose the mid-tier school, it's probably because of other factors that kept them out of Harvard -- and those other factors will probably lead to a lower GPA. If another student's SAT's would imply community college, you might expect them to have some kind of focus or determination that would let them perform at the state school level (and you could detect that determination in their extracurriculars or in student interviews). So this is only surprising data if you try hard not to think about it. What's amazing is that a four-hour test has almost as much predictive value as four years of GPA data -- is four years of your life and tens of thousands of dollars really a good investment, when the result is a ~20% more accurate measure of your abilities? Doubtful.

Eliezer 17y ago

By "consistently predict" you mean "perfectly predict"? That's a little straw, don't you think? Perhaps you meant to say, "The correlation is a mere..." followed by some low number.