Playing the College Ranking Game: How to Stop Gaming the System and Improve Rankings
The following is a guest post by Robert Kelchen , doctoral student at UW-Madison. The recent revelation by Claremont McKenna College that it falsely reported artificially high SAT scores for six years of incoming students is the most recent example of a college or university fudging the numbers in order to look better in the ubiquitous U.S. News and World Report college rankings . Other recent examples of colleges trying to game the rankings include: Iona College reported in 2011 that SAT scores, acceptance rates, student-faculty ratios, graduation rates, and alumni giving rates were exaggerated for a decade. These data were used by 14 external agencies, ranging from their accrediting body to Moody’s and the NCAA. The University of Illinois’s law school reported in 2011 that LSAT scores and undergraduate grades were substantially inflated for six classes of students. These incorrect scores were not discovered until the law ...