Why are Cal SAT scores low?

KevRus
Sat, 30 Mar 2013 21:35:59 +0000

I sincerely hope this thread does not disintegrate into a “is the SAT a good indicator of intelligence?” thread.

…Because obviously it’s not.

Fact of the matter is…no one after high school cares at all about high school test scores…and test scores for entry into grad schools (with the exception of law school, maybe) are not nearly as important as test scores for entry into undergrad schools.

In college, you’re going to realize that all sorts of people have all sorts of different strengths and weaknesses. Some people are extremely smart, but not the academic types. Some people are extremely academic, but not the extracurricular types. People have different priorities in college, and you’ll finally realize that quantitative measurements like the SAT (and - god forbid - even your undergraduate GPA) often mean nothing.

The sooner you get out of your immature high school mentality, the better off you will be at Cal. Cal is tough, and your success on the SAT is not a good predictor of how well you will do in a job interview, in a research setting, or in a group midterm project.