Biggest fraud on the USNEWS ranking?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Isn't it the percentage of "top 10%" students for all the University of California colleges? I don't know the numbers for this year, but a few years ago, 6 out of the top 10 of all universities in the country by highest top% were UC universities - including UC Riverside! </p>

<p>That the top 10% for UCs is always 99%-96% of freshman seems highly suspect. I recall that UC Riverside was 96% top 10% but with an average SAT of around 1020. </p>

<p>I cannot think of any higher distortion - if we new the true numbers, UC Irvine and Davis would easily be off the Top 50 list.</p>

<p>The disconnection between SATs and high school rankings for UCs so obviously stands out when compared to other universities with similar SAT ranges.</p>

2

<p>I don’t know the exact numbers, but the UCs have automatic admissions for kids who finish in the top X%, which explains why the UCs have so many top 10%ers. If UT hadn’t readjusted the Top 10% rule recently, the school would probably come close to having 100% of its incoming freshman class in the top 10% in the next two or three years.</p>

3

<p>The 1960 Master Plan guarantees the top 12.5% of all California high school graduates statewide a spot in the University of California system based on GPAfor 15 courses in specified subject areas (the so-called “a-g courses”) and scores on either the SAT or ACT.</p>

<p>Furthermore, the top 4 percent of each public high school’s graduating class, (eligibility in the local context), based only on a-g course GPA are guaranteed a spot. (These students must have taken the SAT or ACT, but their scores are not a factor.)</p>

<p>There is a new policy for the 2012 high school graduates:</p>

<p>UC’s New Policy Increases Subjectivity in Admissions Decisions</p>

<p>UC’s new admissions scheme makes three major changes:</p>

<pre><code>* SAT Subject exams eliminated – UC asserts that the information gleaned from applicant scores on SAT Subject tests provides little value-added to the information learned from GPA and SAT or ACT scores.

  • Changes statewide and local eligibility pools – The new process reduces those eligible in the statewide context from 12.5 percent to 9 percent, and increases those eligible in the local context from 4 percent to 9 percent.
  • Creates new eligibility Group, “Entitled to Review” – This new category increases the total pool of those eligible for UC admission from the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates based on GPA and test scores, instead allowing UC to choose from among the over 21 percent of graduates who:
    o Complete 11 a-g courses by the end of their junior year with an expectation that they complete all 15 courses by graduation;
    o Maintain at least a 3.0 GPA in the a-g courses; and
    o Simply take the SAT or ACT.
    </code></pre>

<p>For more info:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/eligibilitychanges/faqs.html[/url]”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/eligibilitychanges/faqs.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>I don’t think US NEWS does much in the way of data standardization. this makes it easy for schools to fudge the numbers. Yes, it penalizes the schools that try to report the data correctly and I don’t know why US NEWS will not address this issue or at least do a good job of fact checking.</p>