The present study examined the effects of the part of the school reform movement that requires the passing of a high stakes exit examination (HSEE) to graduate from high school. It was proposed that academic self-efficacy would be more strongly related to educational outcomes for students not required to take HSEEs than those students required to take these exams. Regression analyses were conducted on data from the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS: 2002) and the PISA to clarify this relationship. Results indicated that self-efficacy in specific subjects (i.e., mathematics and English) best predicted student performance on the PISA. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.