SAT/ACT single most predictive factor at Yale

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting podcast out this week by Dartmouth’s Dean of Admission. While interviewing Yale’s Dean of Admission, Yale shares that SAT/ACT is actually more predictive of academic success than transcript at Yale (despite general surveys nationally showing the reverse). Dartmouth has found same as Yale. These findings are institution-specific and could be limited to these sorts of hyper competitive places. Yale found the math score to be particularly predictive for persistence as a science major. Dartmouth had indicated the same. Clark Univ. said transcript is more predictive for them.

My impression is that Yale and Dartmouth really want scores, especially students coming from underresourced backgrounds, from which, as discussed in podcast, an ACT score of 30, while low for the college, would show ability in context. They are concerned these students aren’t submitting because score is below 25th percentile for college. My prediction is that at least Yale and Dartmouth return to test required or at least more strongly encouraged (Dartmouth has already put out test preferred statement).
Not surprisingly, it sounded like although the scores are very important as a threshold matter for determining if student can succeed academically, it sounded like they aren’t that important once that threshold is crossed. This makes sense as they have too many able applicants.
Discussion starts at minute 6:10 with Yale’s statement at 9:12.

Data Dive, Part 2
https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/follow/admissions-beat-podcast

The UC colleges did a deep dive on the millions of students that have gone through their system and also found that standardized test scores were the single best predictor of college success. It also didn’t vary by household income; a 1300 predicted just as well when it came from a student from an affluent family as it did from a student from a poorer family. The push to eliminate standardized testing has nothing to do with their effectiveness in predicting college success.

Link to that study? I only find studies finding the opposite - that GPA is best predictor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The average SAT score is 1028. The average ACT score is 19.

Test scores are extremely predictive of college success. That's why there are a ton of scholarships available for high scores. You want a free ride to Alabama? 32-36 will do it. But test optional is not going away. Colleges love the extra applications. But don't think for a minute that your kid in Bethesda or Arlington can get away with not submitting test scores, unless they have some kind of hook.

For the elite schools, your white kid from the burbs is not getting in without a 1500+ or 34. Plus the 4.0. And what makes things annoying is that TO has bumped up average test scores to the stratosphere. It's tough out there.

Not true.
White kid. 33.
In at Cornell last year.

Agriculture? Architecture? Business? Hospitality?

Business

Geographic diversity? Rural/small town/under represented state?

Please give me some way to dismiss your kid as somehow less deserving of this. Please?

Just be glad they didn’t pair their clueless resentment with casual racism like later posters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting podcast out this week by Dartmouth’s Dean of Admission. While interviewing Yale’s Dean of Admission, Yale shares that SAT/ACT is actually more predictive of academic success than transcript at Yale (despite general surveys nationally showing the reverse). Dartmouth has found same as Yale. These findings are institution-specific and could be limited to these sorts of hyper competitive places. Yale found the math score to be particularly predictive for persistence as a science major. Dartmouth had indicated the same. Clark Univ. said transcript is more predictive for them.

My impression is that Yale and Dartmouth really want scores, especially students coming from underresourced backgrounds, from which, as discussed in podcast, an ACT score of 30, while low for the college, would show ability in context. They are concerned these students aren’t submitting because score is below 25th percentile for college. My prediction is that at least Yale and Dartmouth return to test required or at least more strongly encouraged (Dartmouth has already put out test preferred statement).
Not surprisingly, it sounded like although the scores are very important as a threshold matter for determining if student can succeed academically, it sounded like they aren’t that important once that threshold is crossed. This makes sense as they have too many able applicants.
Discussion starts at minute 6:10 with Yale’s statement at 9:12.

Data Dive, Part 2
https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/follow/admissions-beat-podcast

The UC colleges did a deep dive on the millions of students that have gone through their system and also found that standardized test scores were the single best predictor of college success. It also didn’t vary by household income; a 1300 predicted just as well when it came from a student from an affluent family as it did from a student from a poorer family. The push to eliminate standardized testing has nothing to do with their effectiveness in predicting college success.

Link to that study? I only find studies finding the opposite - that GPA is best predictor.

It’s in some regents report

[Anonymous]

For the most selective colleges, SAT/ACT are the best predictors of college achievement. This isn't just a MIT/Dartmouth/Yale thing. In a paper released over the summer and authored by economists from Harvard and Brown, they said the same thing. The paper was about the advantages an elite education provides a student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For the most selective colleges, SAT/ACT are the best predictors of college achievement. This isn't just a MIT/Dartmouth/Yale thing. In a paper released over the summer and authored by economists from Harvard and Brown, they said the same thing. The paper was about the advantages an elite education provides a student.

It only took MIT one? school year from the initial Covid test optional class (HS class of 2021) to clearly see that test scores are important to predict how well students will do at their institution where every student must complete certain math and science classes. I bet a bunch of test optional admits in the MIT class of 2025 struggled greatly in their first year. Probably more than historical averages for them to pivot so quickly away from TO.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the most selective colleges, SAT/ACT are the best predictors of college achievement. This isn't just a MIT/Dartmouth/Yale thing. In a paper released over the summer and authored by economists from Harvard and Brown, they said the same thing. The paper was about the advantages an elite education provides a student.

It only took MIT one? school year from the initial Covid test optional class (HS class of 2021) to clearly see that test scores are important to predict how well students will do at their institution where every student must complete certain math and science classes. I bet a bunch of test optional admits in the MIT class of 2025 struggled greatly in their first year. Probably more than historical averages for them to pivot so quickly away from TO.

MIT looked back at historical data, they did not make the decision based on one TO year. Purdue uses the same justification when it went back to test required and noted that grade inflation had made grades less predictive.

[Anonymous]

I do think we will start to see more 25% scores submitted bc of this view.

And I agree they should submit. Might help all the scores move back to 33-35 instead of 35-36…..

[Anonymous]

It doesn't matter, because you can have a perfect test score and never be admitted to any Ivy, or Ivy-adjacent institution.

Last year, my kid and his friends had very high/perfect tests scores and submitted them. None of them got into Ivies et al., except one who went to Dartmouth.

So this is just splitting hairs, people. You need so much more than test scores anyway!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting podcast out this week by Dartmouth’s Dean of Admission. While interviewing Yale’s Dean of Admission, Yale shares that SAT/ACT is actually more predictive of academic success than transcript at Yale (despite general surveys nationally showing the reverse). Dartmouth has found same as Yale. These findings are institution-specific and could be limited to these sorts of hyper competitive places. Yale found the math score to be particularly predictive for persistence as a science major. Dartmouth had indicated the same. Clark Univ. said transcript is more predictive for them.

My impression is that Yale and Dartmouth really want scores, especially students coming from underresourced backgrounds, from which, as discussed in podcast, an ACT score of 30, while low for the college, would show ability in context. They are concerned these students aren’t submitting because score is below 25th percentile for college. My prediction is that at least Yale and Dartmouth return to test required or at least more strongly encouraged (Dartmouth has already put out test preferred statement).
Not surprisingly, it sounded like although the scores are very important as a threshold matter for determining if student can succeed academically, it sounded like they aren’t that important once that threshold is crossed. This makes sense as they have too many able applicants.
Discussion starts at minute 6:10 with Yale’s statement at 9:12.

Data Dive, Part 2
https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/follow/admissions-beat-podcast

The UC colleges did a deep dive on the millions of students that have gone through their system and also found that standardized test scores were the single best predictor of college success. It also didn’t vary by household income; a 1300 predicted just as well when it came from a student from an affluent family as it did from a student from a poorer family. The push to eliminate standardized testing has nothing to do with their effectiveness in predicting college success.

Link to that study? I only find studies finding the opposite - that GPA is best predictor.

Come on. In all logic, you know that's crap. GPA is wildly inflated in most public schools (I know, my kids are in public!). Obviously GPA can't predict anything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for sharing, interesting. Requiring scores also helps keep out the upper echelon riff raft. Those privileged over-counseled blood suckers go TO because they don’t have the chops.

LOL. As if plenty of 1500+ scores aren’t the result of intensive, expensive test prep and multiple tries. Come on.

Um. If that were true, more than 2% of test takers would be hitting 1500.

People talk about test prep as if it's a bad thing. All test prep is, is studying! Specifically, studying hard to learn math and reading.

I get that not all students can afford to pay for private test prep. And it's true that high schools vary *a lot* in how well they teach kids math and reading in the first place. But I really don't get when people poo poo test prep as a bad things. It's just guided study!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting podcast out this week by Dartmouth’s Dean of Admission. While interviewing Yale’s Dean of Admission, Yale shares that SAT/ACT is actually more predictive of academic success than transcript at Yale (despite general surveys nationally showing the reverse). Dartmouth has found same as Yale. These findings are institution-specific and could be limited to these sorts of hyper competitive places. Yale found the math score to be particularly predictive for persistence as a science major. Dartmouth had indicated the same. Clark Univ. said transcript is more predictive for them.

My impression is that Yale and Dartmouth really want scores, especially students coming from underresourced backgrounds, from which, as discussed in podcast, an ACT score of 30, while low for the college, would show ability in context. They are concerned these students aren’t submitting because score is below 25th percentile for college. My prediction is that at least Yale and Dartmouth return to test required or at least more strongly encouraged (Dartmouth has already put out test preferred statement).
Not surprisingly, it sounded like although the scores are very important as a threshold matter for determining if student can succeed academically, it sounded like they aren’t that important once that threshold is crossed. This makes sense as they have too many able applicants.
Discussion starts at minute 6:10 with Yale’s statement at 9:12.

Data Dive, Part 2
https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/follow/admissions-beat-podcast

The UC colleges did a deep dive on the millions of students that have gone through their system and also found that standardized test scores were the single best predictor of college success. It also didn’t vary by household income; a 1300 predicted just as well when it came from a student from an affluent family as it did from a student from a poorer family. The push to eliminate standardized testing has nothing to do with their effectiveness in predicting college success.

Link to that study? I only find studies finding the opposite - that GPA is best predictor.

Come on. In all logic, you know that's crap. GPA is wildly inflated in most public schools (I know, my kids are in public!). Obviously GPA can't predict anything.

Isnt parents’ SES while kid in HS and college the best indicator of kid’s post-graduate earnings???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do think we will start to see more 25% scores submitted bc of this view.

And I agree they should submit. Might help all the scores move back to 33-35 instead of 35-36…..

This 100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting podcast out this week by Dartmouth’s Dean of Admission. While interviewing Yale’s Dean of Admission, Yale shares that SAT/ACT is actually more predictive of academic success than transcript at Yale (despite general surveys nationally showing the reverse). Dartmouth has found same as Yale. These findings are institution-specific and could be limited to these sorts of hyper competitive places. Yale found the math score to be particularly predictive for persistence as a science major. Dartmouth had indicated the same. Clark Univ. said transcript is more predictive for them.

My impression is that Yale and Dartmouth really want scores, especially students coming from underresourced backgrounds, from which, as discussed in podcast, an ACT score of 30, while low for the college, would show ability in context. They are concerned these students aren’t submitting because score is below 25th percentile for college. My prediction is that at least Yale and Dartmouth return to test required or at least more strongly encouraged (Dartmouth has already put out test preferred statement).
Not surprisingly, it sounded like although the scores are very important as a threshold matter for determining if student can succeed academically, it sounded like they aren’t that important once that threshold is crossed. This makes sense as they have too many able applicants.
Discussion starts at minute 6:10 with Yale’s statement at 9:12.

Data Dive, Part 2
https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/follow/admissions-beat-podcast

The UC colleges did a deep dive on the millions of students that have gone through their system and also found that standardized test scores were the single best predictor of college success. It also didn’t vary by household income; a 1300 predicted just as well when it came from a student from an affluent family as it did from a student from a poorer family. The push to eliminate standardized testing has nothing to do with their effectiveness in predicting college success.

Link to that study? I only find studies finding the opposite - that GPA is best predictor.

I'm a prof. We often complain around the water cooler that the profile of our school was one where students have low high school GPAs and high test scores. The reason we complained is that this is basically the profile of kids who are smart but lazy. (High test scores suggest that they could have done well in classes... but they didn't.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting podcast out this week by Dartmouth’s Dean of Admission. While interviewing Yale’s Dean of Admission, Yale shares that SAT/ACT is actually more predictive of academic success than transcript at Yale (despite general surveys nationally showing the reverse). Dartmouth has found same as Yale. These findings are institution-specific and could be limited to these sorts of hyper competitive places. Yale found the math score to be particularly predictive for persistence as a science major. Dartmouth had indicated the same. Clark Univ. said transcript is more predictive for them.

My impression is that Yale and Dartmouth really want scores, especially students coming from underresourced backgrounds, from which, as discussed in podcast, an ACT score of 30, while low for the college, would show ability in context. They are concerned these students aren’t submitting because score is below 25th percentile for college. My prediction is that at least Yale and Dartmouth return to test required or at least more strongly encouraged (Dartmouth has already put out test preferred statement).
Not surprisingly, it sounded like although the scores are very important as a threshold matter for determining if student can succeed academically, it sounded like they aren’t that important once that threshold is crossed. This makes sense as they have too many able applicants.
Discussion starts at minute 6:10 with Yale’s statement at 9:12.

Data Dive, Part 2
https://admissions.dartmouth.edu/follow/admissions-beat-podcast

The UC colleges did a deep dive on the millions of students that have gone through their system and also found that standardized test scores were the single best predictor of college success. It also didn’t vary by household income; a 1300 predicted just as well when it came from a student from an affluent family as it did from a student from a poorer family. The push to eliminate standardized testing has nothing to do with their effectiveness in predicting college success.

Link to that study? I only find studies finding the opposite - that GPA is best predictor.

Come on. In all logic, you know that's crap. GPA is wildly inflated in most public schools (I know, my kids are in public!). Obviously GPA can't predict anything.

Best study I’ve seen was the one the Iowa regents did when they went test optional, which showed that while ACT score is generally predictive, kids whose GPAs are low relative to their ACT scores (slackers) don’t do as well and those whose GPAs are much higher than their ACT would predict (grinders) do really well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It doesn't matter, because you can have a perfect test score and never be admitted to any Ivy, or Ivy-adjacent institution.

Last year, my kid and his friends had very high/perfect tests scores and submitted them. None of them got into Ivies et al., except one who went to Dartmouth.

So this is just splitting hairs, people. You need so much more than test scores anyway!

Did they have something extra? Niche interest? Area of focus? Unusual Awards?