Report links entering students’ standardized test scores to six-year college completion rates

# What the report examined

# Core findings

The report gives concrete comparative points: an institution with a 25th percentile SAT of 900 has a predicted completion rate of about 51 percent, while an institution with a 25th percentile of 1300 predicts completion above 90 percent. After adding controls for factors such as institutional resources and students' socioeconomic characteristics, the association remains large: a 100-point increase in a college's lower-bound SAT is associated with a roughly 7.9 percentage point rise in six-year completion.

# Where the relationship weakens and where it holds Selectivity and academic preparation explain a lot of the variation in completion rates, but the analysis also highlights institutions that combine stricter academic gates with inclusive admissions. The report names George Mason University, the University of Kansas, and Drexel University as examples of schools that admit widely among applicants who meet particular academic thresholds and achieve an average completion rate around 80 percent.

The report also notes that although SAT scores have risen over time and the test has become somewhat easier, the SAT and ACT remain strong predictors of college completion in this analysis. The tests continue to provide admissions officers information about which applicants appear academically prepared for college-level work.

# Policy context During the COVID-19 pandemic many selective colleges stopped requiring standardized tests. The report notes that several institutions have started restoring testing requirements, and it frames those policy reversals as connected to concerns about academic preparation and completion outcomes. The analysis uses pre-test-optional cohort data to assess how test-based measures of academic readiness relate to eventual degree attainment.

# Practical implications for admissions officers and policymakers

• Test scores offer predictive information about students' likelihood of completing a degree, even after accounting for institutional and student background factors.
• Restoring or retaining test requirements is one lever institutions can use to screen for academic preparedness, though the report does not claim testing is the only or definitive solution.

# What the report does not resolve The analysis documents a robust association between entering test scores and completion outcomes and adjusts for observable confounders. It does not, within the supplied summary, claim definitive causation or detail every mechanism linking test scores to completion. It also does not provide a full list of institutions or describe the full set of controls and statistical methods in this summary.

# Bottom line For the 2018 cohort analyzed through 2024, measures of academic preparation as captured by lower-bound SAT/ACT scores closely track six-year college completion rates. That relationship persists after basic statistical controls and informs why some institutions are revisiting test-optional policies.