Previous research has linked higher levels of academic preparation as measured by the ACT® to postsecondary success, such as earning higher college grades and completing a college degree in a timely manner. This ACT Data Byte extends these findings, illustrating the positive relationship between graduating from high school college and career ready…

Ensuring postsecondary readiness is a goal of K-12 education, but it is unclear whether high school students should get different messages about the required levels of academic preparation depending on their postsecondary trajectories. This study estimated readiness benchmark scores on a college admissions test predictive of earning good grades in…

The Study evaluated the predictive validity of various operationalizations of AP® Exam and course information that could be used to make college admission decisions. The incremental validity of different AP variables, above and beyond traditional admission measures such as SAT® and high school grade point average (HSGPA), in predicting first-year…

The continued accumulation of validity evidence for the intended uses of educational assessments is critical to ensure that proper inferences will be made for those purposes. To that end, the College Board has continued to collect college outcome data to evaluate the relationship between SAT® scores and college success. This report provides…

The continued accumulation of validity evidence for the core uses of educational assessments is critical to ensure that proper inferences will be made for those core purposes. To that end, the College Board has continued to follow previous cohorts of college students and this report provides updated validity evidence for using the SAT to predict…

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationship between Advanced Placement (AP) exam participation and enrollment in a 4-year postsecondary institution. A positive relationship was expected given that the primary purpose of offering AP courses is to allow students to engage in college-level academic work while in high school, and…

A recurrent trend in higher education research has been to identify additional predictors of college success beyond the traditional measures of high school grade point average (HSGPA) and standardized test scores, given that a large percentage of unaccounted variance in college performance remains. A recent study by Wyatt, Wiley, Camara, and…

A recent report by Wyatt and Mattern (2011) compared college outcomes for low-socioeconomic status (low-SES) students who received Advanced Placement® (AP®) fee reductions versus low-SES students who did not participate in the AP Program. The results indicated that AP Fee Reduction students had better college outcomes than students from low-SES…

There is a common misperception that test scores do not predict above a minimum threshold (Sackett, Borneman, & Connelly, 2008). That is, test scores may be useful for identifying students with very low levels of ability; however, higher scores are considered unrelated to higher performance for those above a certain threshold. This study aims…

This study examined the validity of the SAT for predicting performance in first-year English and mathematics courses. Results reveal a significant positive relationship between SAT scores and course grades, with slightly higher correlations for mathematics courses compared to English courses. Correlations were estimated by student characteristics…

Previous research has found a positive relationship between AP® participation and performance with various college outcomes. Building on this work, the current study investigated the relationship between AP participation and performance with choice of college major. Specifically, this study examined whether students who take an AP Exam in a…

This report presents the validity of the SAT for predicting two second-year outcomes: (1) second-year cumulative GPA (2nd Yr Cum GPA), and (2) second-year grade point average (2nd Yr GPA). Similar to the results for first-year grade point average (1st Yr GPA), the SAT is strongly correlated with second year outcomes. For many significant…

The findings for the 2008 sample are largely consistent with the previous reports. SAT scores were found to be correlated with FYGPA (r = 0.54), with a magnitude similar to HSGPA (r = 0.56). The best set of predictors of FYGPA remains SAT scores and HSGPA (r = 0.63), as the addition of the SAT sections to the correlation of HSGPA alone with FYGPA…

The current study examines the relationship between the SAT® College Readiness Benchmark with the outcome of graduation from college in either four or six years. The results indicate that the SAT benchmark is indeed differentiating between those students who graduate within four years and those who do not, as well as between those who graduate…

Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in New Orleans, LA in April 2011. The current study examined the differential validity of the SAT for predicting cumulative GPA through the second-year of college by college major, as well as the differential prediction of cumulative GPA by college major among…