Do schools lie on their website about what scorse it takes to get in?

Applying to College
1

<p>It really seems like it does.</p>

<p>Note U Pitt.</p>

<p>The website says the 25th percentile of enrolled students is 1190 but PrincetonReview says 1150.</p>

<p>I've noticed this kind of exaggeration on a lot of other websites too. Maybe this is some sort of marketing technique? But it's lying.</p>

2

<p>Maybe the Princeton Review is wrong.</p>

3

<p>you might be comparing scores of two different years/classes of students.</p>

4

<p>shat changes year to year i’d say its extremely likely that your princeton review book is a couple of years old</p>

5

<p>You have to match up years and the exact type of numbers. I doubt the schools are deliberately lying, though, yes it is possible a mistake was made. This is the sort of thing that can easily be checked so not smart to lie about it. I think it is routinely checked by College Board and other sources.</p>

<p>However, colleges do mislead with the way they phrase things. The old expression, “statistic, more statistics and damned lies” still hold true. You have to read carefully what the statistic is. I hear and read many schools making themselves look more competitive by quoting the number of application they receive and the number of kids who end up coming, and making it look like that is the selectivity percentage. It leaves out, how many were accepted out of those applying, and how many of those choose to come or not to come.</p>

6

<p>If anyone is wrong, it’s the Princeton Review. Think about it, the book was probably published a year or so ago while the school’s website has access to the most up to date stats.</p>

7

<p>Princeton Review has the same issue as USNews. Each is always a year behind. Here is how it works:</p>

<p>USNews and Princeton Review publish their college lists with score ranges annually in August. The August 2007 publication for each was called the 2008 edition (in reference to the class that would refer to it) and is the one currently available. The score ranges in those editions are for entry class of 2006. When they publlish new ones in August 2008 (the 2009 edition), they will be using scores of entry class of 2007.</p>

<p>The colleges publish more recent data on their own sites. For example, what you might see on any college’s site now are score ranges for entry class of 2007 and come September 2008, they will all start to show their score ranges for entry class of 2008.</p>

8

<p>A few more points to consider in reviewing/comparing these types of statistics:

  1. Are the data years consistent?
  2. Does the population consist of enrolled or admitted students?
  3. Main campus data only or are all campuses included in the cited data? (For example, Pitt has several branch campuses in addition to the main campus in Pittsburgh)</p>