SAT Scores of Students Who Study the Arts: What We Can and Cannot Conclude about the Association

Perhaps the finding most often mentioned in the popular press about the relationship between arts and academic achievement is that students who study the arts in high school have higher SAT scores than those who do not study the arts. This kind of claim is exemplified by the quotation above, presented as testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives. The relationship between arts courses and SAT scores has been documented by the College Board since 1987 and is based on a very large sample-all students taking the SAT who voluntarily responded to the Student Descriptive Questionnaire (SDQ) as part of the registration process. Between 94%-95% of students taking the SAT fill out at least one item on the questionnaire. The College Board considers the data to be nearly a complete and accurate description of the tested population.' The analysis we present here is based on the actual mean scores of students responding to a given question. We have analyzed the College Board data to answer a variety of comparative questions.