<p>“I wonder if using the overall SAT for the college in the formula helps adjust for the unevenness.”</p>
<p>I’ll help you with that. No it doesn’t, It just creates more distortion.</p>
<p>What you’d really want is the SAT for the students taking courses in that department. Which is rarely if ever available.</p>
<p>IF the overall SAT you’d propose to use is not just for the college, but includes SATS for students in a conservatory of music, a teacher’s college, a college of agriculture, or whatever other specialized, and separate, college there is there that has completely different admissions practices, and you’ve lumped them all together, then you really have something useless.</p>