Does the SAT (and ACT) Matter?

Only if you want to graduate from college

There has been a lot of liberal educator commentary of late about the SAT (and the ACT) college entrance test being an inaccurate measure of college success. Some elite (and liberal-dominated) colleges around the country have discarded use of college entrance tests altogether. The standard story is that high school grade point averages are a much better predictor of college success.

Now, in a New York Times article certain to give liberal educators a good case of indigestion, Peter Salins, former provost of the multi-campus State University of New York, reports on research that says those liberal educators are blowing smoke.

Salins uses a different approach to gauge the value of the SAT by examining how well it relates to graduation success in New York colleges that increased SAT requirements versus those campuses that kept the original, lower SAT admissions requirements.

Salins’ finding – SAT scores are indeed important predictors of success in graduating from college – better than high school GPA.

Fortunately, no-one at the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education is talking about downplaying the role of the ACT in our admissions process, but a number of liberal education people in this state have taken some swipes at the ACT, anyway.

It’s being reported that high school grades in Kentucky have been inflated. The reason is to make students appear more attractive to colleges and to jimmy more KEES scholarship money out of the taxpayer. That grade inflating trend makes the ACT even more important, and it makes it most unlikely that a Salins-style study in the Bluegrass State would turn up anything different from what happened in New York.