"U.S. News & World Report looms large within the higher education landscape. Students applying to college consult it, and the public at large accepts its rankings as authoritative.
So it is hardly surprising that annually some school gets busted for supplying fake data. But while outright lies place schools in the spotlight, there are subtler ways to mislead.
Here is a quick lesson on ‘data creativity.’
The most important measure of a school’s selectivity is its admit rate. Seems simple enough — you divide the number of studentsadmitted by the number who applied. But what counts as an application? Some schools have a two-part application, with the second part containing all we usually think of as an application, and the first part is merely a postcard or email expressing interest." …
Opinion.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-perspec-college-rankings-0828-story.html