This one seems counter-intuitive. That GPAs from many different schools tend to predict student success much better than a multiple-choice exam. After all, students take the same exam.

Multiple papers on the SHSAT put the exam’s accuracy at about 20%. This means that a middle school student’s score accounted for about 20% of their high school outcomes. But GPA and state scores have a greater than 40% accuracy.

The problem at least seems to be that we under-estimate the variation in a single seating sample of a student’s academic ability. Compared to our over-estimation of how different the top students are.

But we have decades of research showing that this really is the case. It’s also easy to see when we look at college students then compare their past GPAs along with their past high-stakes test scores.

Although they both correlate with success, the successful students’ GPAs MORE accurately predicted their academic success.

Research

Note that much of the research involves high-school GPA predicting college success because the idea of using high-stakes testing in middle school to get INTO high school is pretty much unheard of in most of the nation.

1.Predicting College Success with High School Grades and Test Scores: Limitations for Minority Students also ( researchgate )

2.VALIDITY OF HIGH-SCHOOL GRADES IN PREDICTING STUDENT SUCCESS BEYOND THE FRESHMAN YEAR: High-School Record vs. Standardized Tests as Indicators of Four-Year College Outcomes* ( PDF )

3. I’ve spent years studying the link between SHSAT scores and student success. The test doesn’t tell you as much as you might think.

4. What Predicts College Completion? High School GPA Beats SAT Score

5. GRE fails to identify successful Ph.D. students

6. When It Comes to College, High School Grades Reveal More Than Just Academics

7. GPA Versus Exam Scores: What’s Better in Predicting College Success?

8. GRE fails to identify successful Ph.D. students

9. It’s GPAs Not Standardized Tests That Predict College Success