I never knew that Georgia and Wisconsin were the only two states that required SAT or ACT scores for admission to two-year colleges. Now, it looks like it'll be only Wisconsin:
Georgia is looking to lure more high school students into college with a pilot program that waives SAT or ACT scores as a requirement for admission to many of the state's two-year and smaller four-year colleges...The experimental program was spurred by three developments, said Daniel S. Papp, the University System of Georgia's senior vice chancellor for academics and fiscal affairs:
• A Board of Regents recommendation to increase access to higher education in the state, particularly at two-year colleges...
• A national study showed that Georgia and Wisconsin were the only states that used the admissions tests at two-year colleges.
• An analysis of academic performance concluded a student's high-school grade-point average was a more accurate predictor of a college freshman's grades in two-year colleges than the student's SAT or ACT scores.
"If the SAT or ACT doesn't add anything to our decision regarding who to admit at our two-year colleges, then why require it?" Papp said.
Why, indeed? I'd be more interested in asking the question of why it doesn't add anything over and above grades, since it usually does (to my knowledge). Certainly, the SAT loses predictability when the college class is relatively homogenous, so if the typical two-year college freshman class is of a fairly narrow range of ability, the SAT would have less predictive power. I think it's certainly possible that many of the high-SAT folks go to four-year colleges, even if they have mediocre grades.
Also, two-year college courses could be fairly similar in structure and to high-school courses, so there might be a higher correlation than you see with four-year colleges.
Posted by kswygert at November 29, 2005 05:36 PM