A New Leaf

I ran across these interesting data today showing a range of metrics for a few dozen of the most prominent American/International schools around the world. Most of these schools are private and non-profit. A commenter hypothesized that IB diploma scores and SAT composite averages were uncorrelated. It turns out that (s)he is maybe right — the two series have a weak positive correlation, but the standard error is high, and the relationship is only significant at the 80% level.

Here’s a chart showing the relationship. This tells you that for every 1-point increase in the IB diploma scores, a school will tend to have a 21-point better SAT composite average. The standard error on that estimate is 15 (t-stat ~ 1.4; p-value ~ 0.18).

The number of data points is low, but you might interpret this weak relationship as evidence that these two programs — standardized test vs holistic multi-year curriculum — measure different sets of skills, and that colleges are wise to consider them separately.

IB vs SAT scores at international schools