<p>I honestly don’t get it. It’s a test you take one day. Why do colleges weight it so heavily?</p>
<p>Those standardized tests are supposed to be the great equalizer between students from different schools. </p>
<p>If a student with a 3.5 GPA takes the SAT and gets a 2250, he is obviously more qualified than a kid with a 4.0 and a 1650. This would suggest that kid #2 had very severe grade inflation and didn’t deserve his 4.0, while kid #1 went to a seemingly difficult high school, where he did well, but his classes were incredibly challenging. </p>
<p>College admissions officers like to see SAT scores that match GPA, and while I can’t tell you what GPA would be roughly equivalent to a certain SAT/ACT score, it raises a red flag if score and GPAs are drastically different. </p>
<p>The goal of these schools is to give an accurate representation of the difficulty of a school and judge a student’s GPA.</p>
<p>Because it’s an even playing field… If your grades in HS were all they had to go on, then it wouldn’t be fair… Some teachers/classes are easier/harder or some teachers are stricter/lenient when it comes to grading… The SAT/ACT are curved to be the same for everyone…</p>