<p>I'm starting to see some real discrepancies between Naviance Data for accepted students and the averages reported by the schools for accepted students, particularly with regard to GPA's. Almost across the Board, the Naviance scores in which students are getting in are lower than the schools' self-reported data.</p>
<p>Having spent hours analyzing the data, the only logical conclusion I can come to is that the schools are playing with the data to make themselves look more selective. What I call "playing", I'm sure they would call "adjusting" or "leveling the playing field" or "standardizing".</p>
<p>Let us take University of Miami, for example. They are reporting an average GPA for admitted students of 4.0. Give me a break. While Miami is a fine school, I find it hard to believe the average admitted student there is a straight A student and they are able to win national championships in several sports and attract the top partiers in the nation.</p>
<p>By applying their own weightings, it is very easy for a school to make a 2.50 student look like a 4.0 on a 6.0 scale (or whatever techniques they are applying).</p>
<p>The colleges are under tremendous pressure to make themselves look more selective as significant dollars are at stake, not to mention alumni contributions and government grants. We all know what can happen when job pressure and dollars collide - stuff happens. It is like the basketball coach who is under pressure to win - sometimes recruiting violations happen. </p>
<p>The colleges are playing all kinds of games to look more selective and beat the USN&WR game: Two part applications (first part is give me your name and address) to increase applications. Intentionally recruiting unqualified applicants to increase applications. Not reporting recruited atheletes or hooked donors in SAT scores as a matter of "school policy". Counting withdrawn applications as applications. Pressure to apply ED to increase yields. Pressure to commit before May 1 in order to get preferred housing. The list goes on and on.</p>
<p>I truly believe the GPA's being reported by the schools are inflated beyond belief as the real admitted student data on Naviance tells a completely different story...year after year,,,university after university.</p>
<p>Call me naive, but for the longest time I couldn't figure out why every student attending a Third Tier University was an A- student in high school. Then you look on Naviance and the B/C kids are getting in consistently.</p>