<p>The same thing happened at UIUC Law. Admissions director was lying about incoming LSAT scores for a long time and no one noticed. At the end of the investigation they blame everyone on one person and act like no one else could have known. I’m not sure how that is possible? Someone should have been checking these things at both schools. The buck doesn’t stop at the admissions directors desk.</p>
<p>This is disgusting that this form of cheating has been going on for the past 6 years at CMC (probably longer) and there’s, at the very least, “a game of manifpulation” that is being played by an unknown number of colleges. Do these same schools think it’s okay for their students to engage in cheating?</p>
<p>At this point Voss isn’t talking but that will likely change at some point in time and it will probably get very interesting.</p>
<p>1- yes, it’s cheating and that is a bad thing; inexcusable
2- it is a symptom of how our zeal for the “best” schools causes us to mistake precision and accuracy: the difference between a median score of 1400 and 1410 is w/in the margin of error
3- schools are manipulating the Top Colleges list published by a second rate news magazine? I am shocked
4- kudoes to C-M for going public with this</p>
<p>I’ve love to hear what xiggi has to say about this. For years he’s been accusing other colleges of manipulating data, when all the while his own alma mater was one of the worst offenders.</p>
<p>Yet another reason that choosing schools based on superficial USNWR rankings is insidious. But many do it. </p>
<p>Claremont is a fine school. No school is its admissions office. Its always about the campus, faculty, programs and students. Period.</p>
<p>First the quality of the education received at CMC is the same today as it was yesterday morning. But the point is not whether the SAT scores were inflated by one point or one hundred points. The fact the inaccurate stats were reported at all is the significant issue. I find it hard to believe that one of the top officials at CMC personally calculated the mean SAT scores. If that is the case someone else new what was going on and did not say anything. Unfortunately the College Confidential community is stats oriented. Any one who has been on the board awhile remembers last year when the admission rate debate between Pomona and CMC went back and forth and if I remember correctly it involved a 0.1 percent difference. Until the investigation is complete all CMC admissions stats are in question. Personally I could can less about something like the admission rate or mean SAT scores but to some potential students (parents?) and more importantly alumni admission stats are a big deal. I remember being at the University of Chicago for an information session with my son and they were bemoaning the switch from the Uncommon App to the Common App to decrease their admission rate. The admission officer stated it was being done to impress others especially the alumni. What is important is the quality of education received at a college. An op-ed piece in today’s LA Times talks about the difficulty in coming up with a way of measuring quality. [Colleges</a> need to make sure students are actually learning - latimes.com](<a href=“http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-zimmerman-are-college-students-learning-20120131,0,1176778.story]Colleges”>Are college students learning?)</p>
<p>Yup the talk is nothing but numbers, numbers, numbers…until the numbers go down! Then its the “sum parts of the school”, the qualitative aspects, or other such platitudes that start to be bandied about. Fact is, lower numbers, lower rank = less attractive by some degree to applicants and distinguished faculty.</p>
<p>This is where it actually pays to cheat. I find it hard to believe that only one person knows and reports the average, 75th percentile…which anyone with half the brain can calculate.</p>
<p>The majority of people will not hear about this (I wouldn’t know if I didn’t check CC now). So CMC still stands to gain out of this. I did remember how CMC got a “noticeable” jump though it didn’t register to me it was anything suspicious. Now it explains it. CMC has gotten more selective in recent years, perhaps partially because of this (oh, to whoever above bragging about its 11-12% admit rate, the stats might have been partially driven by its inflated SATs at the first place - higher stats led to higher perceived prestige which led to more applicants). Even though now that someone got “caught”, the overall impact is still “positive”, if that means higher ranking.</p>
<p>I agree with Sam Lee…how is possible that only one person made the choice to lie and no one else knew that the numbers were wrong?</p>
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<p>You are barking up the wrong tree, my dear Middlebury friend. My record on similar issues is one of consistency. Not favoritism. </p>
<p>Not only have I accused other colleges of manipulating data, I have shown how they did and still do it. Your school is hardly a model of integrity as it has and still uses semantics to game the rankings by, among other tricks, obfuscating the winter enrollment. And, fwiw, it is particularly interesting that you decide to call me out on a deception regarding falsely reporting SAT averages when your own school made a mockery of the system by reporting willy-nilly data until stumbling onto the best formula. However, pointing the finger to the other cheaters does NOT minimize the apparent lack of integrity at our own school. If you expected me to open a bag of excuses, you are wrong! </p>
<p>In addition, my message has always been about school offering complete and full disclosure and operating under total transparency. For instance, I met several times with people at the admissions’ office to complain about CMC not releasing its CDS forms. I am obviously disppointed in the recent announcement. And, for the record, I am surprised by it on a personal level as Dean Vos never indicated a great concern about rankings.</p>
<p>There is no sugarcoating as it is plainly wrong. All we can hope for is that the further investigation will get to the bottom of the deception. The sad reality is that Claremont McKenna did not need this type of manipulation to maintain its ranking. In fact, people who understand the arcane mechanisms of the USNews formula know that CMC could have … benefitted from a lower SAT score. But that is irrelevant at this time. Deception IS deception. </p>
<p>Despite the avalanche of negativity that will fall upon CMC, we should applaud the apparent swift decisions of our leadership. In the usually secretive world of academia, many matters are buried and left unexplained. One only has to look at the never explained departure of Lee Stetson at Penn to understand the ramifications of not disclosing the good, the bad, and the … ugly. </p>
<p>Again, we all should demand and hope for the investigation to be fair and humane. On a last note, we did not pick CMC for its SAT average scores. Althiugh the school did use our individual SAT scores to pick us, it was only a smart of the application puzzle. </p>
<p>Our common denominator with the school is … leadership. The school has AGAIN shown us the way and has not hesitated to fight its demons in the open and face adversity with candor and determination. We, students and alumni, should do the same.</p>
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<p>Sam, while I respect your position and opinion, I am not sure how you could remember a noticeable jump, and how this might be related to SAT scores. </p>
<p>Throughout the past years, CMC has remained in a very narrow band in the rankings, and has NOT really benefitted from a heightened selectivity. In the world of Bob Morse, an increased selectivity comes at a price, and a lower selectivity is amply rewarded. Take a look at the selectivity rankings of Pomona and Smith. In the years when Pomona jumped up in scores and decreased its admission rates, it LOST ground to non-coed schools by the magic of the expected graduation penalties.</p>
<p>I have my own theories about why and how this deception started. I believe it has more to do with sloppiness than with malice. However, it makes no difference. It should not have started and not have continued for a long time.</p>
<p>It’s fraud. CMC should refund all admission fees. They took in that money under false pretences.</p>
<p>Actually, I think the victims in this case are the people who looked at the median SAT score, went “oops, mine are too low” and who eliminated themselves from competition in seeking admittance to the school – people who might actually have been happy there and done well. I think if I were a guidance counselor or parent who had discouraged a child from applying based on the stats, I’d feel a bit duped and sad right now.</p>
<p>Everyone praising the school for “coming clean” should understand that if they tried to keep it under wraps and it leaked out the school would be open to lawsuits for consumer fraud and government action for using federal loan money to keep enrolling students while falsely marketing the product. The school didn’t have much choice in its “decision” to come clean.</p>
<p>^I tend to agree with Prophet12. The real reason for coming clean sooner than later will be uncovered as more information becomes known.</p>
<p>“If I were an ED applicant I would ask to be released from binding decision to attend so that I could reconsider, that’s all. When someone sells you something based on false information, you have that right.”</p>
<p>Fully agree. IMHO, CMC should offer an “opt out” of the ED committment.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is that not only SAT scores are part of the ranking, but also “peer assessment reputation” and “high school counselor undergraduate academic reputation”. Both are likely to be affected by the repercussions of this issue.</p>
<p>What I mean is if CMC had reported the righ SAT scores, the influence would be mostly through the 7.5% weight of these scores. Given the “scandal” factor, the impact on rankings next year may disproportionally affect rankings. Further, USNews may think that they have their fingers burned, and treat CMC extra carefully the comming years, with a negative bias. In other words, anything that is dubios (say rounding of a number) they may round it down instead of rounding up.</p>
<p>I am not a futurologist, but I will not be surprised if CMC goes down more than 1-2 positions next year.</p>
<p>This blame-one-person affair awfully reminds me of the Communist Party of China’s way of dealing with scandals. When a scandal breaks out, rather than initiating major upheaval or reform of the institution, it usually ends with the execution of some high-ranking scapegoat.</p>
<p>As someone who was accepted Ed 1 to cmc I can say the reason I applied early was not because of test score averages. The great social aspects, amazing education, good location, and size are what drew me in. If someone who applied ED no longer wants to got here because of a 20 point difference in the score average, maybe they weren’t meant to be there anyway</p>
<p>“If someone who applied ED no longer wants to got here because of a 20 point difference in the score average, maybe they weren’t meant to be there anyway”</p>
<p>If someone cannot see that the issue is not 20 points difference; the issue is lying on this to gain a fair advantage, than this person is meant to be there anyway (right there with Dean Vos).</p>
<p>1bie792, I wondered about the bonus possibility too. This seems like too much risk for too little gain (in terms of higher school rankings, more applicants, etc.) unless there was a more direct financial motive. In that case, a difference of few points might be all that was needed to ratchet to the next level.</p>
<p>I still find it odd that the guy couldn’t come up with a semi-legitimate way to create such a small difference, like finding a rationale to drop a few low-scoring admittees out of the average.</p>
<p>Overall, I don’t think the point difference is big enough to affect application decisions. If you really wanted to attend the school, a few points in the quartile ranges wouldn’t be likely to dissuade you from applying.</p>