Colleges use your SAT I scores to assess your readiness to do the tough academic work of college. The SAT I does something that your high school transcript can't, namely, assess your general academic problem solving skills. Course grades are, unfortunately, far from an objective measure of your academic ability. Teachers occasionally inflate or deflate grades for reasons unrelated to intellectual ability, and there are no objective standards for grading among schools, or even among teachers in the same school. Achievement tests like the SAT IIs are more objective, but they are designed to assess subject knowledge rather than problem-solving skills. Of course, subject knowledge is critical to a good education, but it is only a part of the puzzle. Also, much subject matter can be memorized and forgotten. Knowledge is effective only when it is incorporated into a meaningful and robust way of solving problems. The SAT I, although not perfect, does a good job of measuring how well you reason under pressure, an important academic and life skill.

Doesn't the SAT I do a poor job of predicting first-year college grades? In fact, SAT I scores do correlate very well with real academic success, that is, professional success in an academic field. In many ways, this is more important to colleges than predicting grades. Some students can get good grades without showing great intellectual ability, by "playing the game" of school.The SAT I is often able to distinguish these students from the good thinkers. Rather than predicting your
grades, your SAT I scores indicate your ability to read critically, write well, solve math problems intelligently, and think under pressure. The SAT I is not designed to predict how well you'll play the college grading game.

Admissions officers understand that grades often don't reflect sheer intellect, so they don't want a test that simply predicts grades. They value SAT I scores because they assess some of the reasoning skills that make people successful in life, regardless of their grades. They also provide a way of comparing students from widely varying academic backgrounds.

College admissions officers know that high SAT I scores don't guarantee college success, but they also know that the scores indicate to some degree how ready you are to do college work.



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