We've heard about students cheating to increase their scores, but colleges?
Even if students don’t pay that much attention to college rankings, the colleges themselves seem to obsess over them. Especially problematic are colleges that crave to the pressure, using any means necessary to increase ratings. According to this article in the Sentinel Tribune, Claremont McKenna’s senior administrator recently resigned after admitting he falsified college entrance exam scores for years to inflate rankings.
Other colleges spend billions on financial aid in order to entice students with high scores to attend their school or offer bonuses to presidents who increase their school’s rating. Baylor University went as far as to pay students who had already been accepted to retake the SAT exam in order to increase average scores.
Unfortunately, when colleges focus only on increasing their ratings, they are not doing what’s best for students. Some of the consequences include, “recruiting as many students as they can to apply, even if they're not likely to be a good fit, just to boost their selectivity numbers. And they've showered financial aid on high-achieving, and often wealthy, kids with high SAT scores.”
