<p>My parents read this alum's post online and now they don't want me to attend. What should I tell them? :(</p>
<p>February 3, 2012</p>
<p>The Cheating and Fraud at Claremont McKenna</p>
<p>Claremont McKenna College, a private liberal arts school nestled in the foothills on the eastern outskirts of Los Angeles County, dishonored itself and defrauded the public in a cheap effort to bolster its national rankings in U.S. News and World Report. But if that weren't bad enough, Claremont's deception calls into question the very worth of its students, faculty, and graduates.</p>
<p>Charles C. Johnson is a writer living in Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Just FYI… the author is an alum that is perhaps the most disliked member of any CMC class in the last ten years. He spent his four years on campus making enemies of countless students and faculty members and is personally responsible for hateful articles about members of the CMC community. He is a good writer which can fool people, but please PLEASE urge your parents not to take him seriously - no one on campus does.</p>
<p>Your parents should be aware of the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Just because this writer says CMC could lose accreditation doesn’t mean that’s actually the case. This article is the only place I’ve even seen that mentioned. Accreditation wouldn’t be withheld for something like this; it would be withheld if the college was lacking educationally in some serious way, which CMC clearly is not. A few points on the SATs is not enough for a college otherwise in good standing to lose accreditation.</p></li>
<li><p>The SAT scandal does not significantly affect the education you will receive or the value of your degree. The classes are still the same. The extracurricular activities are still the same. The athenaeum is still the same. The students are not significantly less intelligent than 30 more SAT points would indicate they are. Morally, the school’s administrators may be in the wrong, but it does not affect you as a student.</p></li>
<li><p>Few people in the wider world will remember this in four years or so when you’re looking for a job. Even fewer of those who consider you for jobs will know of it or remember it, and I can’t see how they could possibly interpret it as showing that the educational quality of the school is lacking even if they did. Claremont McKenna is an excellent institution of higher learning, and employers know that.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>A past effect of the cheating would be to artificially raise (by a small amount) the caliber of students (by convincing them to attend), and possibly new faculty as well; the practical effects (if any) would thus be positive for current diploma holders, but employers (and grad schools?) might not realize this. Future effects would not be so positive.</p>
<p>Charles Johnson is a very provocative individual who picked fights with untold numbers of students, professors and students during his 4 years at CMC. I could write 5 pages of all the incidents he was involved in during that time. Let’s just say that the school breathed a sigh of relief when he graduated. To say he is bitter and angry would be an understatement. A month or two before he graduated, he was accused by another student of sexual harassment and the incident was investigated by the college. Although he was allowed to graduate, I believe he harbors very hostile feelings toward the school. Charles can be extremely vengeful, just ask some of the students and the one particular professor who he attempted to slander with his internet tirades. So anyone reading the nonsense he puts out, I would take it with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>“Few people in the wider world will remember this in four years or so when you’re looking for a job. Even fewer of those who consider you for jobs will know of it or remember it …”</p>
<p>It seems to me that this would in fact be true if it turns out to be the case that the scandal involved just one rogue administrator. </p>
<p>But it’ll likely take several months for investigations to be completed and for all the facts to come out as to the breadth and depth of the scandal. Until that happens, no one really knows what happened. The full extent of the corruption is uncertain at this point, and, therefore, the ultimate effect on CMC’s reputation is uncertain, and will remain so for some time.</p>
<p>Hopefully, this whole thing will boil down to one misguided administrator trying to pad his yearly bonus check.</p>