Do college entrance examination scores predict undergraduate GPAs? A tale of two universities

•We examine how well College Entrance Exam (CEE) scores predict college GPA in China.•The CEE score is found to be a significant predictor of college GPAs for all four years.•Predictive power of the CEE has changed over time.•Students admitted by recommendation without CEE earned higher GPAs in college.

Each year, millions of Chinese high school students sit the National College Entrance Examination (CEE). For the majority of students, the CEE score is the single determinant in whether they gain admission into a college and to what college they enter. The purpose of this paper is to determine whether and how well the CEE score predicts college academic success. We also consider high school achievement and admission route in predicting college grades. We obtain administrative data on CEE and undergraduate GPAs from two Chinese universities with very different rankings. We find that, for both universities the CEE total score predicts undergraduate GPAs for all four years in college. Even the size of the estimates for CEE is similar for the two universities. High school achievement and admission routes are also significant predictors of college grades. However, we do not find consistent results as to which CEE subject test scores predict students' academic performance in college.