<p>I think for what it is the SAT is a pretty decent indicator. It has been around for decades and there is a reason for that; because contrary to popular belief it does work pretty well. There will never be a perfect test that is completely 100% accurate and 100% completely fair but colleges need a way to distinguish top students from one another and the SAT is one part of that. There are much less really high SAT students out there than high GPA students and since all schools are different in grading style the SAT is the equalizer (or ‘an’ equalizer in the admissions process) in a sense.</p>
<p>The recent CB studies shows the SAT works pretty well for predicting GPA in college (I believe it was a .53 correlation?) while High School GPA was basically the same at .54(?). Some people <em>cough</em>fairtest<em>cough</em> are looking for some perfect correlation but lets face it: some students spent tons of hours studying to get good grades and college may be overwhelming as material gets harder and memorizing turns to applying, some of those “lazy geniuses” who had mediocre grades and high SATs will continue to be lazy. The correlation between high school gpa AND sats was over .6 which seems to indicate they are a pretty solid combo.</p>
<p>Also if you aren’t a fan of the emphasis colleges place on the SAT, don’t apply to law school, the LSAT will either by your best friend or worst enemy</p>