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It’s that time of year, when applications for US universities begin to open. Looming ahead of you are hours upon hours of studying for that all important college admissions exam, the SAT Reasoning Test. Required by the vast majority of well-regarded universities in this US for admissions purposes, your SAT score supposedly predicts how well you will do in college academics.

Considering that your SAT results constitute a significant chunk of the success or failure of your applications, perhaps you have launched yourself into your SAT prep course and books without asking yourself, “Does my SAT score REALLY predict my academic success in college?”

John Allen Paulos of ABC News wrote an article on this same topic, and the answer is not as straightforward as you might think.

Actually, the correlation between SAT scores and first year college grades isn’t impressive at all; only about 10-20 percent of differences in college grades are explained through SAT scores.

On the other hand, a school like Stanford accepts students with extremely high SAT scores while community colleges accept students with lower SAT scores. Yet, both types of institutions use similar grading scales; this explains at least part of the low correlation.

The reality is that the SAT is an objective, yet imperfect indicator of how well you will actually do when you get into your university discussions groups and lectures. However, what’s also undeniable is that applicants’ SAT scores will continue to be taken into serious consideration by a wide range of US universities.

To read the full ABC News article, click here.