“In general, top colleges care more about freshmn retention and grad rates than who gets what high college gpa. .”
In complete agreement here.
The analysis of variance model used many years ago in my above reference was real in a multi-year study. The college GPA was a proxy for student retention. The assumption being that a decline in the college GPA would lead to poor retention. Of course retention is the goal!
I did this work for ten years. Yes, I have experience also, including ADCOM. We also learned that the relationship between the secondary school GPA and the college GPA was strongest in first year, faded in second year, but still held a stronger relationship in the third year than did standardized test scores. Variance in standardized test scores never performed as well as a predictor of college GPA as did variance in the secondary GPA.
Note: It would be very difficult to run this test if all entering freshmen had had 4.0 GPAs and 800 SAT scores. Variance testing requires variance…