<p>I can't imagine this to be true or even possible, but how can one institution "work" its numbers on so many variables to hold on or improve it's ranking?</p>
<p>Are there several large loopholes that Penn is so brilliantly managing to manipulate? I can see all institutions making decisions that will not hamper their respective rankings, but I cannot seem to understand how one can continue to do it for several years. Seeing that Penn has stayed in the top 7 spots since 1998, I have to believe that it's current ranking is well justified. </p>
<p>Anyone still thinks that Penn is up there merely by playing the numbers?</p>
<p>You can't be in the top 10 year after year just by playing your numbers- not possible for Penn or any of the other schools. I think it's more of an issue of moving up and down a few spots. It's really impossible to know if schools intentionally try to "work their numbers" because obviously no one would admit to it.</p>
<p>Some accusations:
-Penn is only highly ranked because Wharton boosts the numbers so much.
(Clearly not true- it only make up 1/4 of the school. At least we don't separate our schools (?!!?!) like Columbia.)
-Schools that heavily use ED, like Penn, do so because it raises the yield rate. This might make sense- except that yield is not factored into the rankings AT ALL.
-The most feasible way to play with numbers would be to accept students based mostly on SAT scores/class rank rather than holistic admissions. This actually counts for almost 15% of the rankings. This clearly doesn't apply to Penn though- our scores are actually slightly lower than peer schools with similar (and higher) acceptance rates.
-Other than that there's not much that can be done other than just flat out giving incorrect numbers, which would be too blatant.</p>
<p>Basically there will always be a lot of controversy over the rankings since they're just kind of ridiculous. I think Penn has been pinpointed some because it rose in the rankings so quickly that people couldn't believe it just happened naturally and wanted to blame it on cheating.</p>
<p>
[quote]
-Schools that heavily use ED, like Penn, do so because it raises the yield rate. This might make sense- except that yield is not factored into the rankings AT ALL.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think yield rate is factored into the "selectivity" rank of the school, Harvard being #1 in selectivity due to high matriculation? However, ED doesn't really affect the selectivity THAT much.</p>
<p>I think people just find it hard to believe that Penn is such a good school considering where it was 20+ years ago. It's made a lot of strides improving the undergrad experience and gentrifying the area. It's not perfect (far from it) but still a lot better and more popular than it was back in the day.</p>
<p>yield isn't directly considered into the equation, but some people think it makes schools appear more attractive and will elicit more applications... therefore a higher rank. it's a really distant correlation though.</p>
<p>Actually the correlation between ED, yield and selectivity are not that distant. ED leads to a higher yield which in turn means schools that use ED aggressively will have to admit less students to achieve the enrollment desired, hence decreasing the acceptance rate and increasing selectivity.</p>
<p>Penn was always a great school, in the past and now. I just don't think USNEWS rankings measure anything. What Penn did shouldn't be considered cheating as somebody above me claimed- it should be considered smart. My hats off to Penn for doing this. </p>
<p>I was admitted to Penn as a highschooler and I am actually thinking of transferring to Penn, so I am not trying to put down Penn at all. Penn is awesome.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, though, that acceptance rate is only 1.5% of the total US News score (10% of the 15% allocated to "Student Selectivity"--see the link in post #8, above). So unless all other factors are extremely close among similarly ranked schools, relative acceptance rates won't have much of an impact on specific US News rankings (e.g., Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth have had lower overall acceptance rates than both Penn and Duke, while at the same time being ranked lower than both Penn and Duke by US News).</p>
<p>Its in faculty resources, student/ faculty ratio, % faculty full time, and financial resources rank where there is the most room for fudging - particularly among research universities that have more room to do so. These are the areas UChicago "adjusted" when it shot up in the ranks. WashU games these bigtime. So USNEWS can be worked - I'm not saying Penn does however.</p>
<p>One way that Cornell 'games' the US News rankings is by offering a guaranteed transfer in the winter or after one year. They generally give this to students who are promising, but have low SAT scores. This year, they gave a record number of these out (I personally know 3 people). When they report SAT scores as well as acceptance rates, they don't need to include people who are not matriculating as freshman. Cornell also accepts a HUGE amount of transfers. This allows them to not have to fill up so many spots with freshman, and therefore artificially increasing selectivity.</p>
<p>WashU 'games' USNews by accepting purely high stat people. Also, to protect their yield/acceptance rate, they will waitlist their most qualified applicants. This way, they don't need to accept them until they can be sure an applicant actually want to come there.</p>
<p>As for Penn, I don't know if this is true, but some people think they use a technique of deferring some people they plan to accept regular decision. This way, their ED acceptance rate doesn't look so much higher than their regular decision one. Even though deferred students are no longer required to matriculate if accepted, these students have a significantly higher yield rate than other RD acceptees (because it was, at least at some point, their first choice). This technique is quite effective because it results in a lower acceptance rate/higher yield rate without appearing to do so. (Schools that accept huge amounts of their class ED get a lot of flack)</p>
<p>Also, I don't know if this is true, but I heard that Penn has a tendency to accept students who are more likely to attend and reject overqualified students who they feel will get into HYP since they believe they will lose cross-admit battles with these schools. This would decrease their acceptance rate and increase their yield. Once again, I don't know if this is true or not, it's just something I've heard on numerous occasions.</p>
<p>Bottom line is that rankings are very flawed, and it's very possible to manipulate one's standings in the rankings.</p>
<p>the main way the goose their numbers is through a funky admissions process
1. most of the class is accepted through early decision, making penn seem much more selective than it is (boosts yield and lowers admit rate since they need to admit less people that may go elsewhere)
2. penn has a bunch of special "programs" like huntsman that aren't scholarships per se (since the ivy league can't do academic scholarships) but are marketed that way anyway
3. penn specifically invests in metrics that u.s. news evaluates</p>
<p>^^1. 1/3 of the accepted students are through ED and they make up 1/2 of the class
2. programs like huntsman don't give out any money, so I don't know if you can call them scholarships.</p>
The actual data--which Penn puts out there for all the world to see--tends to contradict this belief. For the Class of 2011, Penn deferred 1,476--or 37%--of all ED applicants, and then went on to accept only 202--or 14%--of the deferred applicants. 202 out of a total of 3,637 accepted applicants isn't much of a yield booster, and these numbers don't reasonably and objectively sound very much like manipulation. And, as I indicated, rather than hiding them, Penn prominently displays these numbers on its web site:</p>
These are common myths disseminated by Penn detractors, which are simply unsupported by the cold, hard facts:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Only 48%--not "most--of Penn's class is accepted through ED, a percentage which was virtually identical to Princeton's ED percentage before it dropped ED, and which is in line with Columbia's, Brown's, and Dartmouth's ED percentages in the 30s and 40s.</p></li>
<li><p>These programs have nothing to do with financial aid, and are not "marketed" as such, making this assertion a complete non sequitur.</p></li>
<li><p>There is absolutely no objective evidence that Penn does this to a greater extent than its peers or, indeed, that it does it at all.</p></li>
</ol>