Sat-GPA Disconnect

nyc
Sat, 24 May 2008 09:53:01 +0000

“College admissions can not rely on course level and grade alone as it can be misleading.” (post #32)

Yes, but decreased reliance on the SATs seems to be a trend as more schools, most recently Smith College, go SAT optional. This is b/c the scores are predictive of first-year college grades, at most, and b/c of the scores’ correlation with income.

But, as long as colleges report SAT scores )CDS) and SAT scores are used in the ranking systems, strong scores never hurt - - even w/ SAT optional schools. In fact, I wonder whether some schools og optional for the sole purpose of posting even HIGHER SAT scores (when a school goes optional, only students w/ really strong scores submit the scores, so the median SAT score tends to rise).

I think the Yale admissions response (post #21) says it all.