For four-year (rather than six-year) graduation, ACT scores are slightly predictive but their coefficient is one-sixth the HSGPA coefficient¶
Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associationalr3·q3
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
Subclaims¶
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q3 i? ACT is slightly predictive of graduating in four years controlling for HSGPA and college characteristics, but the HSGPA relationship mirrors six-year graduation with odds doubling per SD. → Allensworth 2019
Evidence¶
Allensworth 2019¶
Allensworth, E. M., & Clark, K. (2020). High School GPAs and ACT Scores as Predictors of College Completion: Examining Assumptions about Consistency across High Schools. Educational Researcher, 49(3), 198–211. https://consortium.uchicago.edu/publications/high-school-gpas-and-act-scores-as-predictors-of-college-completion doi:10.3102/0013189x20902110
q3 · i? · associational · r3
Four-year graduation models in Table 5 for the CPS sample; only about half as many students graduate in four years as in six. Variation in ACT slopes across high schools is not significant, but the standard deviation of ACT slopes is larger than the average ACT slope.
"ACT scores are slightly predictive of graduating in four years in the full model, even controlling for HSGPA and college characteristics. However, the ACT coefficient is one-sixth the size of the HSGPA coefficient"
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Adding ACT scores to models with HSGPA contributes little to the prediction of college graduation and does not reduce between-school variability — related
- ACT scores show a weak relationship with college graduation, with slope variation across high schools larger than the average signal — related
- ACT scores weakly predict college graduation, and the school-level variance in the ACT slope (0.192) exceeds the average slope (0.129), so school effects introduce more noise than the ACT signal — related
- Both HSGPA and ACT strongly predict four-year college enrollment and enrollment in colleges with strong graduation rates — related
- HSGPA strongly predicts six-year college graduation among four-year college enrollees, with odds of graduating doubling per standard deviation of HSGPA — related
- School average ACT scores predict college graduation for students with the same individual HSGPA and ACT score, reducing between-school variance by 42 percent, while school poverty is not significant once average ACT is included — related
- HSGPA has a strong, positive relationship with college graduation that does not vary significantly in its linear slope across high schools — related
- The linear slope of the HSGPA–college graduation relationship does not vary significantly across high schools, so HSGPA provides a consistent signal across schools — related
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
act-weakly-predicts-four-year-graduation |
title |
For four-year (rather than six-year) graduation, ACT scores are slightly predictive but their coefficient is one-sixth the HSGPA coefficient |
description |
For four-year (rather than six-year) graduation, ACT scores are slightly predictive but their coefficient is one-sixth the HSGPA coefficient |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2020 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-09 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — allensworth-2019 |
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