Emory intentionally reported false SAT, GPA, class rank data, Prez admits

Parent Cafe
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Regardless of whether the numbers given are true (and for the record 98% does sound high to me) please explain how the transfer admission numbers affect the top decile statistics for the first time freshman admits. Either X number of first time admitted freshman were in the top decile or they weren’t. How do the number of community college junior transfer admissions affect that number?</p>

<p>I’ll carefully read a rational explanation if you’re inclined to provide one. Declarations aren’t of much interest to me.</p>

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I’ll take a look.</p>

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<p>What about 2012?</p>

<p>I assume I’ll have to look around a little for the 2010 and 2011 issues.</p>

<p>I will say it’s a bit much to accuse a school of subterfuge by using data they provide publicly. And for a few percentage points. UC provdes a lot of data for all to see through UCOP.</p>

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<p>^^ </p>

<p>Cal 2012 61,702 13,038 21.1%</p>

<p>The 2012 data is a work-in-progress -for good reasons! It will be used in the CDS published later this year, and will be used in the USNews rankings next year in the Best Colleges 2014 edition. If they are still alive by then. </p>

<p>In other words, for 2012, we cannot compare the UCOP numbers to a CDS that has yet to be created.</p>

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And your contention is that other schools don’t do similar things with their waitlisted students, etc? You wouldn’t know any of this if the university didn’t make it known. I haven’t noticed all the other schools being so forthcoming.</p>

<p>Also, US News could easily find this information you post as well, so I assume your main criticism is directed at them.</p>

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<p>Bovertine, I am not sure I follow all your comments, especially the defensive ones that seem to intimate I posted something derogatory. </p>

<p>The “good reasons” are pretty simple: the school year has not started and the final numbers for admissions and enrollments are not available yet. This is has nothing to do with Cal in particular. All schools are in the same boat. </p>

<p>In addition, you asked me about the 2012 numbers and I gave you the reason why I did not list them in my earlier post.</p>

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<p>I have no idea why I would be defensive since I did not attend Cal, and have no connection whatsoever.</p>

<p>Perhaps I got the impression you were being derogatory to the school because you accused them of providing false information. I certainly wouldn’t take that as a personal insult, since I have nothing to do with producing Cal’s CDS or it’s submission of data to US News. Or any other school’s data analysis for that matter.</p>

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<p>While I totally agree that the rankings systems are flawed and should be taken with a grain of salt, I find it… amusing that one of the AJC 's cover articles today is about the usefulness of the ranking system. Is this an attempt at rationalization? [Emory</a> scandal: Critics doubt college ratings | ajc.com](<a href=“http://www.ajc.com/news/emory-scandal-critics-doubt-1506588.html]Emory”>http://www.ajc.com/news/emory-scandal-critics-doubt-1506588.html)</p>

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<p>I think rankings are good fodder for interesting discussion but as a useful tool, I don’t think so. After having done a pretty thorough search of “LACs with engineering” east of the Mississippi and north of the Mason-Dixon line (LACs with engineering just doesn’t make sense to this classicist) I was very hard-pressed to find any discernible differences in the colleges although their “rankings” were widely spread by many deciles. Other than some finger wagging at the “cheaters” there’s not much to do other than grin and bear it and hope this obsessive desire to rank order fades into the sunset. I suspect if you took every college in USNWR and added up all the kids the college claims are “in the top 10%” and compared that to the total number of college bound freshman it wouldn’t add up…but I have no desire to amuse myself with the machinations of backing up my opinion.</p>

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<p>Pretty balanced and accurate reporting. Surprisingly so, but then I might be to used to Cynthia Tucker’s drivel.</p>

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<p>I’d urge you to do the math for a few states. I think you’d find that your suspicion is wrong. Not that there wouldn’t be a handful of schools that are out whack, but for the most part the numbers seem to add up. I’ve actually done this for the state of Michigan, and the numbers actually make sense. The University of Michigan gets about 30% of the top 10%-ers in the state. Michigan State gets about 15%. Grand Valley State gets about 6%. The other 10 public universities get something on the order of 1 to 2 percent each. Private colleges and universities in the state get generally less than 1% of the top 10% in the state except the University of Detroit Mercy which is about 1.2%. Ivies get about 1.5% of the top 10%-ers in the state of Michigan, and other top-25 private universities combined get about 3%. Out-of-state publics get almost none, and non-elite out-of-state privates get even fewer. It all adds up: top 2 public flagships just under half, other publics combined another 1/4; and the remaining 1/4 are divided among in-state and out-of-state privates, out-of-state publics, community colleges, and probably a handful of top 10%-ers who don’t go to college at all.</p>

<p>Xiggi would have you believe that the University of Michigan’s claimed haul is not credible because it’s so high. But the thing is, you can’t account for where all those students are going if they’re not going to the University of Michigan. </p>

<p>And Michigan’s numbers are very consistent with other state flagships. Here’s a sampling, based on 1) CDS-reported percentages of freshmen in the top 10% for class entering in 2010, 2) US Dept of Education figures on numbers of in-state students enrolled as freshmen in 2010, and 3) state Dept of Education reports on numbers of HS graduates in 2010 (assuming 10% are in the top 10% of their class). This roufh calculation assumes the school’s percentage of in-state students in the top 10% matches its overall rate in the top 10%; this is probably not the case at a school like Alabama, which lures a lot of top OOS students with large merit awards, or Michigan, which attracts large numbers of OOS student and where OOS admissions standards are widely believed to be higher for OOS than for in-state students. At those schools, then, the percentage of in-state student in the top 10% is probably somewhat overstated in my calculation.</p>

<p>Percent of state’s top 10%-ers enrolled as freshment in 2010:</p>

<p>University of Washington 52.7%
University of Nebraska 37.7%
University of Alabama 31.4% (plus Auburn 24.6% = combined 56.0%)
University of Wisconsin 30.0% (adding Wisconsinites attending the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities where they get in-state tuition rates, you get 44.5%)
University of Georgia 23.7% (plus Georgia Tech 16.6% = combined 40.2%)
University of Minnesota 22.8% (adding Minnesotans attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison where they get in-state tuition rates, you get 29.1%)
UVA 22% (plus VaTech 17.9%, plus William & Mary 9.6% = combined 49.5%)
University of Texas-Austin 18.4% (plus Texas A& M 14.8% = combined 33.2%)
UC Berkeley 7.3% (combined with UCLA 9.6% = 16.9%; but then, it’s an enormous state).</p>

<p>It’s much lower in some states, of course, especially were there’s a lot of competition of quality private institutions.</p>

<p>I find all these figures credible. Where the heck is a top-10% student in Nebraska going to go, if not to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln? Smaller numbers will end up at the University of Nebraska-Omaha or University of Nebraska-Kearney; a few will end up at Creighton, a pretty decent private college in Omaha. A smattering will end up at lesser in-state schools, and a tiny fraction will leave the state. The pattern is pretty similar for most states where the public flagship is seen as the best college or university in the state. (In this regard, notice the difference between Minnesota and Wisconsin, two states that in most respects are like peas in a pod; but Minnesota has some top quality LACs like Carleton, Macalester, and St. Olaf that make Minnesota students much more cognizant of private options, not only in-state but out-of state; and in fact the number of Minnesotan going to elite out-of-state colleges and universities is much larger than the number of Wisconsinites doing the same, despite very similar state populations).</p>