College official falsifies SAT numbers
January 31, 2012
A prestigious Southern California college admitted Monday that a resigned official inflated SAT entrance scores for the past six years to publications like U.S. News & World Report that use the numbers to rank colleges and universities. [NewYorkTimes]
Claremont McKenna College, a liberal arts institution, announced scores for critical reading and math were inflated 10-20 points each year.
Entrance exam results are used to rank colleges, and are influential with students and parents. By enhancing the SAT totals, the school enjoyed a high national ranking and was able to attract more, and educationally superior, applicants.
“The current U.S. News rankings list Claremont McKenna as the ninth-best liberal arts college in the country, a fact noted on Ms. Gann’s biography on the college’s Web site,” the New York Times said. “The Princeton Review gives the college an academic rating of 97 out of 99 and an admissions selectivity rating of 96 out of 99, comparable to some Ivy League schools. It remains to be seen whether the revelation of falsified test scores changes that status.”
The official has not been named.
College officials have alerted the publishers of college rankings of the inaccuracies and hired the law firm O’Melveny & Myers to investigate further.
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