<p>dstark-
regarding the question about SAT scores in post #17…
If you take say the top 100 universities in the US News list and calculate the correlation between graduation rate and say SAT 75th percentile, it will be quite high I am sure…maybe in the .8 to .9 range.</p>
<p>For students in the same school what you have to do is classify your students by sat range, say 25 point ranges, and calculate the mean sat scores and graduation percent within each range. Say this yields 25 ranges and 25 pairs of scores (graduation percent for students within that range and average SAT score for students within that range). Then calculate the correlation.</p>
<p>At one school, the correlation (Multiple R) was about .85 (rquare = .72, which means that 72% of graduation percent is attributable to SAT).</p>
<p>Above was explained to me by a relative who works in higher ed administration.</p>
<p>I don’t know offhand the correlation between family income and SAT but it is probably fairly high. Smart kids probably have smart parents. Smart parents generally make more money. High SATs cause high family income.</p>