Standardized test scores trump transcripts

Don't put down that LSAT prep book just yet.

A study of over 200,000 graduate-school-bound students found that entrance exams like the MCAT and GRE are better predictors of future performance in graduate school than college transcripts.

The study was conducted by University of Minnesota psychology professor Nathan Kuncel and was published last week in Science.

But while the study is the most comprehensive one to date, comparing seven different graduate-school admissions tests, school deans say the study doesn't tell them anything they don't already know.

Penn Law Dean Michael Fitts said the correlation between good LSATs - the admissions test required for law school - and success in law school is why the tests have been so important for so long.

"Performance in standardized tests is something you take very seriously," he said.

Test results may also have more complicated indications.

"There are many people who have done well on the LSAT and have not done well in law school and vice versa," Fitts added.

Robert Schwartz, dean of admissions at the University of California, Los Angeles's Law School, echoed these sentiments.

The LSAT is "a good predictor, [but] some people will come in with low LSAT scores and do very well" in law school.

Still, although they say the study points out the obvious, graduate school officials agree that its findings hold true.

At New York University's School of Medicine, for example, admissions officials use the MCAT to help them deal with a rising number of applications that has increased by 300 over the past five years.

"We just don't have the people or the resources to interview 7,500 people," said Joanne McGrath, assistant dean of admissions at NYU School of Medicine.

Beyond school deans, however, some testing officials still have doubts about the study.

Bob Schaffer, director of public affairs for FairTest - an organization that monitors ethics in standardized testing - accused Kuncel's test of having ties to testing companies that swayed his study.

"There is no new research here, they summarized other studies they have done," Schaffer said.

The study, however, is completely unaffiliated with Educational Testing Services, which sponsors, among others, the LSAT and MCAT, Kuncel said.

He added that his research draws only on work done by university professors unaffiliated with ETS.

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