Letters

To the Editor:

The headline over the story on the recent SAT meta-analysis is most curious ( "SAT Said To Be Reliable Predictor of College Success," May 9, 2001). The more appropriate headline would have been "Grades Predict College Success Better Than the SAT."

Yes, the study found that those messy grades from those subjective teachers who use different grading standards in different parts of the country still predict college success better than the SAT. The very best predictor of all was a subset of grades: those garnered in "academic" courses. This finding accords with earlier work by Clifford Adelman at the U.S. Department of Education, who found that the best predictor was something he called the quality and intensity of the high school curriculum—an index of how many tough courses, Advanced Placement courses, and so forth...