If you ainât cheating, youâre not trying.
The student newspaper and its expert witnesses seem to be basing their âsmoking gunâ on the idea that student/faculty ratios are static and shouldnât change over space of 15 years. That would come as a big surprise to many small colleges.
The issue seems partly related to the convenience of the timing (and perhaps to the suspicious appearance of the timing). That is, it appears that Penn revised its student-faculty ratio for a given year on its CDS after the inaccurate figure had been submitted to, and used by, U.S. News for the ranking of Penn (and subsequent to public allegations regarding Columbiaâs accuracy). The article indicates as well that the figures for a string of prior years, although never officially revised, were misleadingly based.
6:1 and 8:1 are materially different. Thatâs a 25% change in # of faculty which IMO should count as a wild swing in pretty much anyones book.
Regardless, the âsmoking gunâ as you called it wasnât simply observed in the numbers. The actual issue here was Penn counting, then uncounting, clinical (non teaching) faculty. Not different in many ways than what certain other schools got rapped on the knuckles for counting hospital expenses as part of expenditures/student ratios.
From the article: âAugust 2023: Penn Admissions publishes âStats and Factsâ section on its website, reporting a student-faculty ratio of 4:1â
This seems to fit right in with UPenn recently crowing about the massive number of their matriculating students having conducted groundbreaking research as high schoolers.
The swing was over a three-year period. In other words, the USNewsâ published ratio went from 6:1 to 7:1 to 8:1, in accordance with Pennâs adjustments to its CDS. Should Penn have done something differently?
Penn could have consistently excluded faculty who did not teach to undergraduates in any capacity (i.e., faculty who taught only to graduate students).
Yes they should not have reported incorrectly in the first place. Clinical, non-teaching faculty should be an obvious exclusion.
I see.
Agreed itâs sketchy. But USN announced they were dropping the faculty to student ratio from its methodology months before this yearâs list. Shouldnât Penn have known it wouldnât matter and therefore had no incentive to intentionally withhold the correct number? In any event, since its not used now it should have no impact on their ranking in USN. The writers of the article and the unnamed experts they quoted didnât seem to be aware of this change.
Indeed one could ask the same question about their reasons for correcting their mistake. Theyâre both valid questions, IMO.