SAT scores and College Engineering GPA Correlation

<p>Is there any correlation between the two? If so what would you place the correlations at… say… a state flagship. The reason I ask is because EVERYONE says getting an engineering degree with a high GPA is one of the hardest things you will ever do. Yet, each individual has a different academic ability.</p>

<p>Any hearsay/guesswork is appreciated. Any official statistics are even more appreciated.</p>

<p>I’d be surprised if there are actual statistics out there. My guess would be that there is a weak positive correlation, going just off what common sense would dictate. Knowing nothing else about 2 people but their SAT scores, I would have to guess the one with the higher SAT score has a higher GPA, but that guess is probably wrong 45% of the time.</p>

<p>While this paper is about math and physics, it does speculate that its results may apply to engineering (which is not offered at the university being studied).</p>

<p>[[1011.0663</a>] Nonlinear Psychometric Thresholds for Physics and Mathematics](<a href=“http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.0663][1011.0663”>[1011.0663] Nonlinear Psychometric Thresholds for Physics and Mathematics)</p>

<p>I think it would be safe to assume that natural ability has a positive correlation with GPA.
Hard work, however, is significantly more important.</p>

<p>

[National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://gradeinflation.com/]National”>http://gradeinflation.com/)</p>

<p>tl;dr The correlation is weak.</p>

<p>[Phys</a>. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res. 3, 010106 (2007): Interpreting force concept inventory scores: Normalized gain and SAT scores](<a href=“http://prst-per.aps.org/abstract/PRSTPER/v3/i1/e010106]Phys”>http://prst-per.aps.org/abstract/PRSTPER/v3/i1/e010106)</p>

<p>and</p>

<p><a href=“http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:eHC4r4uT2kQJ:scholar.google.com/+thinking+in+physics&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5[/url]”>http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:eHC4r4uT2kQJ:scholar.google.com/+thinking+in+physics&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>“Thinking and Physics”</p>

<p>" We have examined pre-instruction SAT scores and normalized gains on the Force Concept Inventory(FCI) for individual students in interactive engagement(IE) courses in introductory mechanics at ELHS inMaine (N= 335) and at LMU (N = 292), and found strong, positive correlations for both populations (r =0.57 and<em>r</em>= 0.46 respectively) [17].LMU provided a wide range of cumulative SATscores: 720 to 1550, with an average of 1164 + 8 (s.e.).The cumulative SAT scores among the ELHS studentsranged from 720 to 1540, with an average of 1109 + 9(s.e.). Both the distribution of SAT scores and theregression lines were similar for the two data sets, and so the sets were combined and binned to produce Fig.2.*"</p>

<p>I don’t even know what it MEANS…</p>

<p>^I don’t think it has anything to do with GPAs.</p>

<p>Thanks ucbalamnus for that good article. It shows a correlation between SAT scores and math and physics achievement. As expected, there’s not much of a correlation in history and sociology.</p>

<p>I know a 2300+, 4.0 engineering student (3 years completed) FWIW</p>

<p>Hard work and time management skills, with just a splash of intellectual horsepower, are the key to getting a high GPA. I’m sure there is some correlation with SAT scores, since those things (in perhaps different proportions) are also among the factors in getting a high SAT score, but I think any correlation would be hard to confirm since students in a given engineering program are going to have similar SAT scores. The small differences would often just come down to who ate bananas before the test, who had the money or felt the need to take a Kaplan class, or whose boyfriend broke up with the via text message when driving to the test center. Clearly someone with a 400 math SAT is not going to do as well as someone with a 700, but I’m guessing you’re wondering about those 100-200 combined score differences.</p>

<p>Well I was going to posit that there was little to no correlation. It seems that the studies cited above backed me up. I knew plenty of people with really high SAT scores who dropped out and plenty of people with fairly average SAT scores who excelled. No real way to tell. As has already been mentioned, the bigger factor is how hard people were willing to work.</p>

<p>The various studies do indicate that the SAT has only a weak correlation to college performance overall (for all majors), except for the math section for math-intensive majors (math and physics).</p>

<p>Presumably, it means that students who have trouble with the math on the SAT will have trouble in the more difficult math needed in the math-intensive majors, but such difficulty in math is unlikely to affect most college students. Note that the UC studies indicate that the SAT math has no contribution to predicting college GPA overall, but that may be because students poor at math self-select into non-math or low-math majors where their lack of math skills make no difference in how well they do in their courses.</p>