Students who take honors or advanced placement (AP) courses may have a lower GPA than students in easier classes but generally have higher SAT Reasoning and Subject Test scores.
A study by Dartmouth College determined that students with a 4.0 GPA or above 90 average in high school rarely score in the bottom one-third in the SATs whereas those with a GPA of 2.0 rarely score in the top one-third.
The SAT Subject Test, or SAT II, more accurately reflects a student's GPA than the SAT Reasoning Test, or SAT I. For example, a student getting good grades in biology in school will do well on the Biology Subject Test.
More than 800 colleges no longer see the SAT as indicative of student ability, and have either abandoned them or made test scores optional. Others will now only accept SAT II results, believing they better reflect a student's abilities.
A study by the University of California concluded that SAT prep courses improve a student's score but only marginally and do not improve classroom performance.