Educational Testing Service (ETS), working with 21 U.S. law schools, evaluated the predictive validity of the GRE® General Test using a sample of 1,587 current and graduated law students. Results indicated that the GRE is a strong, generalizably valid predictor of first-year law school grades and that it provides useful information even when…

Descriptions of validity results for the GRE® General Test based solely on correlation coefficients or percentage of the variance accounted for are not merely difficult to interpret, they are likely to be misinterpreted. Predictors that apparently account for a small percentage of the variance may actually be highly important from a practical…

The ability of high school grades (grade point average) and SAT® scores to predict cumulative grades in different types of college courses was evaluated in a sample of 26 colleges. Appended are: (1) Sample Sizes, Means, and Standard Deviations for Subgroups Defined by Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Course Type; and (2) Prediction of Cumulative GPA by…

H. Wainer and L. Steinberg (1992) showed that within broad categories of first-year college mathematics courses (e.g., calculus), men had substantially higher average scores on the mathematics section of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT-M) than women who earned the same letter grade. However, Wainer and Steinberg's analysis may lead to…

Correlation of the Scholastic Assessment Test I: Reasoning Test (SAT I) scores and high school grade point average (HSGPA) with freshman grade point average (FGPA) were studied in a sample of 23 colleges. The SAT I predicts FGPA about equally well across different ethnic groups. Correlation of the SAT I and the composite of SAT I scores and HSGPA…

Students from 38 colleges with high scores on an advanced placement examination essay and low scores on the multiple-choice portion were compared with students with the opposite pattern. The pattern was not related to college grades, but was related to other test performance. (SLD)

If it can be shown that the Scholastic Aptitude Test mathematics test (SAT-M) is a reasonably good predictor of success in particular mathematics courses, it may have a role as a measure of prerequisite skills. The predictive validity of the SAT-M was studied by collecting grades from freshman mathematics courses at 10 colleges (3,499 students).…

Grades in college freshman English composition courses were predicted from high school rank in class, multiple-choice writing scores, essays, current Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) Verbal scores, and scores from a revised version of the SAT-Verbal. Data were obtained from 21 English courses at 17 different colleges with some supplementary data…

Although a number of large-scale studies have demonstrated an increase in predictive validity when SAT® scores are added to high school grades, this increment is often described in terms of a seemingly very small increase in explained variance. This may have led to the erroneous belief among test critics and others that students with low SAT…

Gender differences in college grades in first-year mathematics (algebra, precalculus, or calculus) and Scholastic Aptitude Test Mathematics (SAT-M) scores were studied for about 7,000 men and 5,000 women. Gender differences favoring women in grades and men in SAT-M scores cannot be explained in terms of differential course selection. (SLD)

Examination of the correlation between multiple-choice and essay portions of the College Board Advanced Placement (AP) examinations with grades of first-year students from 32 colleges (largest sample=6,243) shows the best correlation for multiple choice tests for 2 examinations, with multiple choice and essay performing nearly equally for the…