January 5, 2004
A: FROM MENTOR DENISE HARBERT IN IL
Hi Vy! You're right, both are important and you should not ignore one in
favor of the other. However, I would recommend that you focus most of your
energy on your GPA for three reasons:

1) If you take challenging classes in math and English and get good grades
in them (high GPA), then you will probably automatically do well on the SAT
without having to do any extra studying. I didn't study for the SAT at all
and did fairly well on the Verbal section (about 75th percentile) and
really well on the Math section (about 97th percentile). Most of the math
questions that I skipped or got wrong were because I was so far beyond that
level in my math class that I had actually forgotten how to do some of the
easier problems that were on the SAT! If I had tried to study for either
section, I probably could have increased my score further. But my total
score was over 1200, which was high enough to get me where I wanted to go
without any extra effort, so I figured that it wasn't worth the time! I
was very busy with my coursework and extra curricular activities, so I had
more important things to do with my time than try to improve a score that
was already high enough.

2) Nearly all colleges and universities are fully aware of the fact that
high school GPA is a much better predictor of college GPA than SAT score
is. Consider two students: one has high SAT and low High School GPA, the
other a low SAT and high H.S. GPA. The second student is likely to have a
higher college GPA than the first student. Colleges want students who will
do well and make their schools look good, so the second student has a
better chance of getting admitted than the first. Most schools weight GPA
as having more importance in their admissions formulas than SAT
score. Both SAT and GPA are required in the formula, and no-one will be
admitted without them both, but GPA usually contributes more "points"
toward the admission formula. SAT scores generally "qualify" students
whose GPAs are borderline or capture students who might be highly
intelligent, but bored in high school. In general, students with high GPAs
who take a lot of honors classes are probably going to get into a good
university even if their SAT scores are on the low side. On the other
hand, students with high SATs may not get into a good university if their
GPAs are low. Colleges began requiring SAT and ACT scores as a
standardized way of comparing students who come from different school
systems. Some schools are more difficult than others, so a 3.3 at one
school might be comparable to a 3.8 at another. The SAT was designed to
account for differences between schools and various other factors, so that
lower GPA students have the chance to shine and win admission points in
other ways.

3) The SAT only includes math and English and does not count everything
else. These are two very limited areas that do not measure a student's
entire aptitude. The theory is that people who are artistically oriented
will excel on the Verbal section, people who are SET oriented will excel on
the Math section, and well-rounded people will do average or better on
both. This is a beautiful theory, but is not always true, particularly for
people who have severe test anxiety, who study English as a second
language, or who grow up in poverty stricken areas without the same
exposure to various words and experiences that wealthier students have.

I hope this helps, and I will be interested to see if any of the academic
GEM-SET mentors have other thoughts.