<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/education/15baylor.html?hp%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/15/education/15baylor.html?hp</a> </p>
<p>"Baylor University in Waco, Tex., which has a goal of rising to the first tier of national college rankings, last June offered its admitted freshmen a $300 campus bookstore credit to retake the SAT, and $1,000 a year in merit scholarship aid for those who raised their scores by at least 50 points."</p>
<p>Yeaaaaah, private schools don't buy their rankings...:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Baylor seems to see the advantages in multiple SAT attempts...all for the impression of "smart" students.</p>
<p>It just shows how sick this national obsession with US News rankings has become, and how distorted the priorities of some schools in pursuit of better rankings. And how unreliable the rankings themselves are when the data are subject to such flagrant manipulation. What legitimate educational purpose is served by this "investment" on Baylor's part? None. How many admitted students did they low-ball on need-based aid to free up the funds to buy better SAT scores? For shame!</p>
<p>Take SATs AFTER you've been admitted? It would take $300-$1300 to get me to do it!</p>
<p>LOL, wonder how if they ran focus groups to see how little they could offer and still have a large percentage of students willing to sit through that test one more time and try as hard as they can to raise their score just a few more points. Did not read the article, but I assume that they did not need to take the writing section.</p>
<p>Is the ACT second fiddle? Why not have this offer apply to the ACT as well? I thought that they are on equal footing.</p>
<p>Maybe we're making too much of this. Perhaps it's just part of Baylor's efforts to expand extracurricular activities. I mean what else is there to do in Waco?</p>
<p>NewHope33: Maybe we're making too much of this. Perhaps it's just part of Baylor's efforts to expand extracurricular activities. I mean what else is there to do in Waco?</p>
<p>Thanks for the early morning laugh! :)</p>
<p>What's particularly funny is that they raised the average a whopping 10 points. "Go Fightin' Wacos!" or whatever they call themselves.</p>
<p>The article says it's an attempt to reward students with more merit money. Silly, silly administrators - all you have to do is lower the GPA benchmark you're currently using (probably 10 points would do it) and you'd have your newly minted merit students. </p>
<p>Shameless.</p>
<p>Well, son has applied there and his SAT score is more than 200 points over their average....guess we can just sit back and wait for the money to pour in.....</p>
<p>I think this is amusing but I don't think it is a bad thing - if a lot of folks are going to take the US News Rankings seriously, then a lot colleges will try to up their US News Ranking.</p>
<p>I believe that Wash U and Harvard (and others!) stongly encourage a lot of people to apply so they can show high selectivity, a low acceptance rate on the US News Rankings.</p>
<p>Whatever. :)</p>
<p>I don't think Baylor is buying the rankings. The kids are actually having to retest and they earn the score they receive. I look at it as an incentive. I like the idea. Many parents pay their kids for grades on report cards, how is this different?</p>
<p>But can it be honest to gather SAT statistics for students whose most recent test is AFTER admission? </p>
<p>Common</a> Data Set 2008-09</p>
<p>Desperation?? I am NOT a Baylor fan. (by the way, it's the Bears)</p>
<p>Why on earth are they doing this? Are they using the SAT scores after admissions and after school has started to report what their students are getting? That is not right.</p>
<p>As tokenadult said, I think US News uses a lot of data from the Common Data Set.</p>
<p>In the Common Data Set details, colleges report
[quote]
]Percent and number of first-time, first-year (freshman) students enrolled in fall 2008 who submitted national standardized (SAT/ACT) test scores. Include information for ALL enrolled, degree-seeking, first-time, first-year (freshman) students who submitted test scores. Do not include partial test scores (e.g., mathematics scores but not critical reading for a category of students) or combine other standardized test results (such as TOEFL) in this item. Do not convert SAT scores to ACT scores and vice versa.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So I think US News ends up looking at test scores for enrolled freshmen, looking at any test score from before the student "enrolled."</p>
<p>I think.</p>
<p>I don't think this is desperation or cheating. I think the US News rankings are an odd metric and Baylor thought of a way to increase their standings as calculated by this odd metric. I predict a change in US News ranking methodology to prevent this for future years.</p>
<p>What an egregious and completely transparent attempt to directly engineering the rankings. Disgusting and shameful.</p>
<p>So how does this work at Baylor? The student is accepted in March or APril and then has to retake the SAT1 in May or June to go for the $300 or for more merit money? Because the next time after that the SATs are offered are in the fall when the kids are now freshmen and at school, so the SAT scores reported would have had to have been from the spring. I don't get this.</p>
<p>Why don't they have the same offer for the ACTs?</p>
<p>I think because the schools report SAT scores, and not ACT scores, to US News.</p>
<p>Baylor University needs an ethics check if it is planning to submit these numbers to USNews, common data set, or any other similiar type of data collection agency. As much as I like the USNews compilation of data, I am afraid that actions such as this that attempt to game the system will result in discrediting the best ratings & rankings available. Unfortunately, Baylor is not the first as WashUStL pioneered this type of (mis)directed effort. Although, I would find the comparative results interesting.
The solution to this particular type of gaming the ratings/rankings system is to do as the SSATs do--score test takers only against those of the same sex & school year. This would render the Baylor University tests unscorable in any meaningful light, thus stopping this outrageous attempt to raise their profile. Note: SSAT = secondary school admissions test.</p>