Amidst all the hullabaloo about the recent SAT score inflation scandal at Claremont McKenna (here’s a Bloomberg article on the subject), a central point may be getting drowned out: Many colleges are out to game the rankings system, in one way or the other. Some do it in ways that are legitimate, while others do it illegally, and get caught. The bottom line for students applying to college (and parents) is that all ratings should be taken with a grain of salt.
One way in which some colleges have improved their rankings is by going test optional. While colleges claim a variety of motives for going test optional — central among them being inequity in access to test preparation services — there is no doubt that going test optional gives many colleges a leg up in the rankings methodology. Here’s what Jane Shaw says in the Bloomberg piece quoted above:
“Another technique to boost rankings is making the SAT optional for admission. Although colleges (such as Wake Forest and Smith) give a variety of reasons for the change in policy, one effect is to increase the average of the reported SAT scores. According to one study, students who don’t submit their SAT scores test between 100 and 150 points lower than those who do report their results. Keeping those scores out of a college’s average makes it look better.”
As Shaw points out, because lower test scorers often decide to not submit scores, this strategy raises the average SAT score that these colleges report to publications like the U.S. News. However, what she doesn’t mention is that it also increases the number of applicants and thus increases the selectivity of the institution. When Wake Forest went test optional in 2008, the number of applicants went up by 16%. When Muhlenberg College, a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, went test optional in 2007, applications rose by 31%. And, according to fairtest.org, when Mount Holyoke went test optional in 2001, its applications rose by 10% the following year.
SAT scores are 7.5% of the U.S. News rankings of top colleges. Selectivity — the number of students accepted divided by the number that apply — is another 1.5%. Thus, by going test optional, a college can influence 9% of the cumulative score that determines its rank. Does this change cause a change in the rankings? I think, given the small differences in the aggregate scores given to various schools, the answer is yes. In the 2012 rankings, the difference between number 9 (Claremont McKenna, overall score 91) and number 10 (Haverford, overall score 90) was 1 percent. Were an institution to increase its selectivity and average SAT scores by 10% — either by going test optional or by fudging its numbers — it would raise its overall score by close to 1%, and potentially, jump one spot on the rankings.
You can find more information on how the U.S. News weighs various criteria here.
So what does all this mean for you, the stressed out college applicant or parent? It means, dear student or parent, that if you want to be happy and succeed in college, spend more time finding the school that is the right fit for you, and less on figuring out whether the school is number 9 or 11 on the rankings. The difference might well be inconsequential, or faked.
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