<p>No one should be disappointed in Emory just because one Emory employee who wasn’t even high up in the administration acted alone in falsifying the data. Emory as an institution investigated the situation as soon as they found out about it and has already fired the person responsible. This would be a completely different story, though, if it were like the Penn State case, in which the university was helping to cover up the scandal. And since the falsified data wouldn’t even have changed Emory’s rankings in US News for the past two years, this is something any prospective student should forget about and focus on Emory’s strengths as an academic and research institution. It’s a bit unfortunate that many high school or college students outside the Southeast who didn’t previously know of Emory heard about the school for the 1st time through bad publicity. For example, last year Emory became infamous for a while after news broke out about a transfer student (who had been at Emory for less than a semester) getting paid to take the SAT for high school students in New York. In that case, just like this one, one member of the Emory community who had no previous disciplinary or criminal record acted alone (so there was no way the adcomes would’ve picked up on it when admitting him), and Emory took action against that individual as soon as they found out.</p>
<p>My favorite non-stat is “income” for graduates. They make those numbers up. They’re sometimes tethered to some sort of small scale survey but they have no way of knowing what their graduates make - or in most cases even if they’re employed. But you see schools hawking this stat to attract applicants. </p>
<p>Funny thing is that misreporting data only matters if you believe there’s a difference between #23 and #29 or #35. You can at best group schools into general tiers but no methodology exists - and the ratings used are lousy methodology poorly collected and obviously poorly administered - to rank them exactly. Those are my favorite CC posts: the ones arguing the difference in quality between school #42 and #48.</p>
<p>Anyone else think that Emory did this because it got scared after the Claremont McKenna debacle? I don’t think this is just a case of Emory being “dumb”/“ethical” enough to take the high road - they’re afraid some anonymous insider would blow the whistle, and they’d rather have time to respond appropriately before the word got out.</p>
<p>With the exception of perhaps Harvard, every university sees an admit/enroll difference palpable enough to change their rank. Take Berkeley and USC, two schools currently ranked immediately after Emory: both drop 50 points from their admitted to enrolled SAT midpoint. Even YPSM see a drop. From what I’ve seen, the magnitude of the drop is related to the yield (which makes sense), and Emory’s yield (30-31%) would mean that the drop was probably at least 50 points.</p>
<p>My guess as to why Emory started this practice: it was on the rise in US News in the mid 90s, ranked especially high on occasion, and started this in order to reclaim that spot. (See the [historical</a> rankings](<a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070905010206/chronicle.com/stats/usnews/index.php?category=Universities&orgs=&sort=1983]historical”>U.S. News Rankings Through the Years) of US News.) One odd change: from 94-95, Emory jumped 9 spots, far more than any other school in that range. While it could have been a methodology change, most schools stayed relatively constant, with a few exceptions (JHU is probably a fluke, since it jumped back up the next year while most were pretty constant). It jumped 10 spots from 19 to 9 in 97-98, while all remained relatively unchanged. Just a guess, but Emory’s may have been playing the rankings far longer than the admins are suggesting.</p>
<p>I’m wary of other numbers that Emory reports, not just the ones the article mentions. For example, in 2009 (not sure about 2011), Emory ranked higher than schools like MIT and Stanford in the ‘faculty resources’ portion. It’s also maintained a high rank despite the fact that its endowment has remained relatively unchanged: in 1998, it was #5 in the nation with $5.1 billion, and had more than even Stanford, MIT, Columbia, etc. and 2x the amount of schools like Cornell and Chicago:</p>
<p>[Budget</a> 1998-99: President Rodin’s Report to University Council- Almanac, Vol. 45, No. 31, 5/4/99](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v45/n31/budget98-99.html]Budget”>http://www.upenn.edu/almanac/v45/n31/budget98-99.html)</p>
<p>But [in 2011](<a href=“List of colleges and universities in the United States by endowment - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_the_United_States_by_endowment</a> ), it had only $300m more than in 1998 ($5.4 billion) and yet still maintains its spot in the rankings. We all know that US News is very highly correlated with endowment, so Emory’s numbers are suspect to me.</p>
<p>^ I think any college that had an endowment in 2011 that was even slightly higher than it was in 2008 can count itself fortunate. An almost unimaginable amount of wealth was lost by investors, which included college and university endowment funds, at the end of 2008 and the opening months of 2009. It has not been until recently in 2012 that the stock market has shown strong consistent growth.</p>
<p>I’m sure Emory has been playing the rankings game since it became a research University in the 90s, so that’s definitely true. Anyway, I’ve looked at some CDS’s from other top schools (for example, with ND, the students submitting ACT and SAT add up to 100%, I find this extremely rare. Most schools have them add up to well over 100%, but then I thought about something. Those numbers are indeed easy to manipulate. For example, I don’t know how the reporting is supposed to work, but I imagine a reporter could in theory take students who submitted both scores and choose the score that is most beneficial. So if the school is shooting for a 1320 bottom 25% SAT and a 30 bottom 25% ACT, then they could, in theory, have a student who submitted a 1330 and a 28, in which case they choose to include the 1330 in the data and not the 28. Given this, if the staff member wanted to cheat for Emory, they did not have to go to the lengths they did because several students are sending in both scores hoping that one looks good enough for admission)and they are kind of sketch as well (also, Emory’s endowment is still pretty high, higher than some schools ranking higher, so that’s not really sketch. That one year where Emory was number 9 was a huge hiccup year. Several schools were well overanked and I think it may be the year, where USNWR was using the wrong data from Cornell). And yes, methodology changes favored Emory. Given that its small, and student: faculty ratio is lower than schools of similar or higher selectivity who rank lower, that is one thing going for it. Also, rankings are weird. How do they handle the class rank thing? I notice that Emory and many schools for example, less than half (41% at Emory) of the student body report a class rank. Is that a representative data set? Many high schools don’t report rankings, and let’s not mention the confusion of the weighting and inflation that happens at these schools. For example, if Berkeley is mostly California students, and California HS’s have lots of grade inflation, would the average GPA reported really matter that much if it’s super high (how would it be compared to another school receiving several students from states that perhaps have more rigorous grading standards. This seems not to be taken into account or normalized)? And w/HS grade inflation/compression, it can be pretty easy to slip out of the top 10%. Say everyone else has a “4.3” and you have a “4.295” so fall to the second decile, are you really inferior to all the people w/a 4.3? I beg to differ from those who say yes. And yes, Emory has remained stagnant, but this kind of explains why it’s 20 now. It’s still much better off than most (if not all) schools between 21 and say 50 financially (the UCs are really struggling, whereas Emory is bouncing back nicely financially). </p>
<p>The point is, the current methodology of USNWR favors Emory being a top 20 or 25. The selectivity is very similar to schools in the 21-25 range, but the endowment is higher than all of them, and the school is simply smaller (exception, Carnegie Mellon, but our student:faculty ratio is significantly lower, though that’s an extremely crude piece of data if you ask me. We all know that a significant portion of the faculty at these places don’t actually teach undergrads that often). Also, one can maybe attribute the endowment stagnation partially to how small Emory’s alumni base is compared to some of those power houses. Given this, huge campaigns are a lot more laborious than at those schools that have been powerhouses for much longer. In addition, it seems as if the older generation of alumni at Emory appreciate the school more than the newer students ever will. This makes sense given that there is a greater emphasis on prestige and the initial desire to be at a more prestigious school. I’m sure many from old Emory, an awesome regional university, thought Emory was more than good enough. In addition, since Emory was more like a liberal arts college then, the experience was likely to be more transformative and memorable. Now, to today’s students, it is merely another “top private research university that is not an Ivy” and doesn’t do much to differentiate itself from these schools (many will merely come to get a degree in hopes that the name will mean enough to get a job or prof. school offer more easily. It doesn’t, but this is what happens when complete pre-professionalization of the school is almost backed/facilitated by the administration and there is no attempt to curb it and make for a more unique intellectual environment. Older faculty members that were here before it was a research U or just after it became one tell me that it was likely better at providing that sort of environment than it is at providing its current one. Maybe Emory needs to go back to its roots where there was more of a balance). In fact, this incident indicates that some people are trying too hard to make it like, or at least look like these places. How boring and pointless such a quest is. They need to be finding ways to make Emory special, not making it look like a cookie cutter school claiming to be special. Manipulating data doesn’t do this. Manipulate the curriculum, oppurtunities, and marketing and you actually get something substantial to show for.</p>
<p>bernie12, I agree that it’s suspect when the ACT/SAT %s add up to 100%. </p>
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<p>That year, there were no universities whose rank was very different from the years before and after; whether they deserved that rank is irrelevant. As I said, they were all relatively unchanged; I find it unlikely that a methodology change would favor only Emory (to that extent) and no other school. I agree that it’s possible and even likely that US News used the wrong data that year, which led to Emory’s high rank. Despite Emory being all over in the rankings, I wonder whether it would not have leveled out in the top 20 if it were reporting correctly, since it was misreporting the two factors that make up 90% of the selectivity score (currently 15% of the overall score). Anyway, all this is immaterial to my overall point that Emory may have been trying to reach that (out-of-the-blue) higher rank again, hence why it started gaming its numbers.</p>
<p>RE: class rank, I agree that it shouldn’t be a factor in the rankings given that it’s probably not representative, but that’s irrelevant here, since most of the top schools have a relatively low % who report rank.</p>
<p>Emory has 115,000 alumni, which is far more than schools like Princeton, Brown, Darmouth, Caltech, and Rice; about the same as Notre Dame and Vanderbilt; and nearly as much as MIT, WashU, U Chicago, and Duke. I don’t think the size of the alumni base is the issue. Emory is also among the top 20 in alumni giving rate.</p>
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<p>Lemaitre1, I don’t think this matters. Its endowment now is about the same it was before the crisis, which of course means that a decade after 1998, it had gained only $300m. As recently as 2006 (before the crisis), its endowment was actually lower than it was in 1998.</p>
<p>Regardless, the reasons for its slow endowment growth are irrelevant. I’m wondering how Emory has been able to maintain its rank, without fudging numbers, as 10+ schools have surpassed it in endowment, many by sizable margins.</p>
<p>Phantasmagoric, faculty resources is defined here:</p>
<p>[Methodology:</a> Undergraduate Ranking Criteria and Weights - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/09/12/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2012]Methodology:”>http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/09/12/methodology-undergraduate-ranking-criteria-and-weights-2012)</p>
<p>None of the factors spelled in the above link for this category identifies endowment. The only component potentially impacted by endowment is likely faculty compensation (but it’s unclear if that includes excess research funding which could skew the numbers). Without hard numbers for each of the school breakdowns, it becomes difficult to ascertain how much these numbers “should” trend with endowment. Regardless, I don’t believe it’s fair to implicate Emory with additional false numerical manipulation just because it is ranked higher than Stanford in faculty resources.</p>
<p>If you’re alluding to Emory’s overall ranking (as opposed to faculty resources rank) in correlation with its flat endowment growth, you still have to take into account the fact that Emory’s endowment is still superb relative to the schools ranked below it (and some above it).</p>
<p>^ I never said that faculty resources and endowment were linked, and checked the methodology before I posted. I intentionally added the word “also” when moving to the topic of endowment after mentioning faculty resources:</p>
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<p>although I can see why you might think I was asserting a link between the two. </p>
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<p>I didn’t single Stanford out as the reason, but cited it and MIT as examples of a slew of universities that Emory supposedly surpasses in ‘faculty resources.’ My actual reasons for being suspicious were very clearly articulated: its jumping around in the rankings at times while others were relatively constant; its misreporting of data; the uncertain length of time that this has occurred (“since at least 2000” according to admins); its constant rank over the past decade despite the fact that 10+ schools have managed to surpass it in endowment; and so on. (Addendum: Emory is the only top 25 school to have fallen so many places in endowment. Most are still at the place they were in 1998.)</p>
<p>I have not asserted affirmatively that Emory has falsified other data. I am merely pointing out that there is ample reason to be cautious with what it has reported.</p>
<p>Our rank has gone down a lot. The schools below it have not really surpassed it in any of those areas. I think other schools are very suspicious. I think this site (CC) had some people suspicious about UPenn a year or 2 ago and how it got way up where it is (I would honestly argue that many of the schools below it are better or should at least be tied). I think USNWR said that Emory may not have been a top 20 the years before. It would have probably been very close, but not in the top 20 (however, there is the fact that the schools that recently took off in admissions were actually lower or very similar to us those years as well, even if you took the correct data into account). However, now, it’s kind of where it belows (between 20 and 25). I think the fact that it’s here means a lot. Also, note that we just “found” our 115,000 alumni. Before like some years ago (maybe 2-3), we reported much less alumni (well below 100,000, maybe even 70-80k), which means, for some reason, we had a hard time getting those alumni counted or involved. The other powerhouses didn’t traditionally have difficulty mobilizing their alumni base. Additionally, endowment is definitely more than about that. I’m sure its associated w/how the money is invested. Harvard might as well be a serious corporation the way it invests its money for example. Anyway, I don’t think Emory was trying to reclaim number 9. The administration and the person who fudged the data likely knew that was impossible. If anything, they felt pressure to guarantee that we stayed in the top 20 (as currently 21-23 are hot on our behinds are nearly exactly the same). I’m sure it is other measures that kept us near 20. The ranking system does indeed overly favor private schools. That’s all I’m trying to say. Emory could have stagnated or gone lower in certain areas, but still be a top 20 by simply being small and having a huge amount of money (it may have been surpassed by most schools in the top 20, but still has an awful lot and has nearly identical or higher endowment to at least 3-4 schools that rank higher). Also, I don’t know how faculty resources is measured, I never really understood that and nor do I know why Emory would rank higher than those schools (are their faculty larger?). </p>
<p>Also, I’m talking about a year where I think Cornell may have been like a top 10. They said that USNWR used the wrong data (Cornell did not give that to them intentionally I don’t think). There was also a year where Caltech was 1 (I can honestly see them deserving that). Regardless, I don’t see why it’s surprising that Emory has been jumping around. It lost steam and was surpassed by many schools in the key metrics you mention, so the “jumping around” was mainly going down (and then maybe moving like 1 spot up or down after the drop occurred). With that said, It still basically has enough left to be between 20 and 25 some of the time. Also, Emory traditionally does poorly in graduation rate compared to peers. If that was weighted much more after a certain year, that could have made a huge difference. It’s one thing that kills us now, perhaps more so than selectivity (though honestly, if they would have reported the correct admissions numbers, it could have worked more into our favor for the graduation rate as well). I can’t be shocked about the years it ranked near 20. However, anything beyond is indeed weird and I bet it’s due to weird reporting among schools like this and the methodology changes (as Emory does really well in some metrics and is strangely weak in others for a school its size and selectivity, “jumping around” is not surprising). Also, just because most schools have less than “X” report, does not mean it should remain a metric. I didn’t say that had anything to do w/our ranking moreso than me thinking it’s weird that USNWR uses it as part of the data set (I was kind of looking at things they use and thinking about how strange they are. Only seems that the ranking tells you the best place to spend 4 years as opposed to the best place to learn. If the latter, I think more public schools would be in the top 20).</p>
<p>Emory@Oxford’s my first choice, and as I was explaining to my grandfather (an Emory alumnus himself), who told me about this yesterday morning. This misreporting of data probably had very little effect on Emory’s ranking… </p>
<p>What happened was Emory reported the SAT scores for admitted students as opposed to enrolled students. Say one student applied to Emory and Stanford, or Cornell, or another more highly ranked school… He got into Emory and the other schools, and chose to go to Stanford, or Cornell, or wherever. Say another student applied to Emory, and UPenn, Dartmouth, and Pomona… Or whatever “more highly ranked” schools you want. He got accepted to Emory, but not to the other schools – so he attends Emory. I HIGHLY doubt that his SAT score is the reason he got rejected by those other schools… Emory still requires a very high SAT score, high enough to qualify you for admission to other top schools… It’s almost certainly other factors, like ECs and what not, that got said applicant rejected at other schools… </p>
<p>So like I said, the actual difference this misreporting of data made was probably very very insignificant. That still doesn’t justify it, though… In my opinion, this reflects badly on the school, the students, and all of the alumni, and whoever misreported the data should’ve thought about that before he or she did something so unnecessarily selfish.</p>
<p>I don’t know if the person thought they were being selfish though. It is possible that they thought they were being an altruist, doing everyone at the school a favor. However they weren’t. They really only made it harder to measure the actual progress (or lackthereof) in an area. If everyone in the administration was aware of the real data, the school could have been working much harder to get where it feels it belongs in terms of admission data by being much more aggressive in say, marketing as opposed to sitting around and basically doing just enough to keep us at a certain rank. If the people who cared so much about a metric knew where we actually stood, I’m sure Emory would have started a legit marketing dept. way before it did (it may have become legit only a couple of years ago. Before that, Emory hardly did any marketing. Kinda still doesn’t).</p>
<p>While this will have no effect on admissions, it is a sad indicator of what the college admissions process has boiled down to. The fact is that the deception probably did give the school a significant leg up on its overlaps such as Wash U., Tulane, Wake Forest, UNC, etc because so many kids rely on the U.S. news rankings, often to their own detriment. Emory will be fine, even stronger, as people will probably not even hear about this scandal or will forget about it fast but will still take the inflated ranking into account. Emory always has been and will be a fine school. What is needed for applicants, however, is a better guide for college applicatnts that does not liken the process to football rankings.</p>
<p>I actually see slightly more effort on the part of football rankings to measure actual quality than some of these magazines (which like I said, mainly measure, “wouldn’t it be cool if I went there” factor. Doesn’t really matter if I am taught well or develop, but would be cool if I get a degree from a fancy powerhouse like that. Most of the top schools, including Emory, are countryclubs w/more serious academics as kind of a side benefit that hides in the shadows of the country club appeal. The exceptions seem to be the science and engineering oriented schools which are normally difficult enough so that academics come first and room is made for play as opposed to academics being an obstacle getting in the way of the play like it is at many “liberal arts” research universities. We’re all a bunch of beautiful playgrounds where breaks are taken for work from time to time 
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<p>And when did Emory ever have a leg up on WashU? That never happened nor will happen any time soon. Do the schools feel similar? It’s what I hear, but ranking wise, I think they always have the advantage.</p>
<p>What a bunch of cheaters! So no insiders knew for over a decade these shenanigans were going on? Are you kidding me?</p>
<p>I think this will actually get Emory a net gain of applicants. Some won’t apply because it doesn’t look as great as it did, and others who thought they had no chance will apply now.</p>
<p>U.S. News has already said the effects the misrepresentation had on the ranking was negligible so calling where Emory stands “inflated” is a bit harsh. Emory may have been ranked 20 even if this didn’t happen. Would definitely have not fallen outside 25. After releasing SAT scores were about 40 points lower on CR and M, class rank (which shouldn’t even be included) was about 5% less, and for embarrassing USNWR I’m assuming Emory will drop 2-3 places. As an incoming freshman I am a little disappointed and angry about this, but I’m also glad I’m going to a place that is not afraid to admit to its mistake. And, to be totally honest, I really don’t care about the “punishment” we’ll receive as far as ranking goes. Schools can be separated into tiers, but comparing schools in one tier is a matter of taste. I highly doubt Emory has fallen out of its tier. Emory is ranked 2 spots ahead of Georgetown. A lot of people (maybe most) believe Georgetown is better than Emory, demonstrating how little ranking matters when speaking about a few spots. Even NYU, 13 spots below Emory, has a lot of people prefer it over Emory. The damaged reputation, embarrassment, and that bad feeling of being lied to bothers me, but big picture I don’t regret my decision. What makes Emory great is still there, probably even more so, and I believe by owning up to its mistake, Emory has minimized the damage and by next year this will all just be a bad memory.</p>
<p>As I remember, a few years ago Emory accidentally UNDERREPORTED the alumni giving rate. Mistakes happen and unethical people exist. Unless someone has been convicted of a crime, there’s no “ethical screening” that a university can use with its potential employees in the application/interview process.</p>
<p>USNWR rankings are useless. None of the college counselors answer the questions on the surveys they are sent, and if you read Crazy U by Andrew Ferguson, he talks all about the process and how flawed the rankings are. He is good friends with the statistician who does the reporting.</p>
<p>@1542431, that’s the proper way to approach this issue. Emory takes pride in its students maintaining integrity, and they have. Emory’s students are what make Emory, and its students have committed no offense. </p>
<p>As a student at one of Emory’s peer schools (Vanderbilt) who considered attending Emory for college and has several friends who currently attend, I like to think that I have a semi-accurate idea of what Emory offers its students. I do, in fact, hold Emory in very high regard, and I am saddened to see its reputation so unjustly tarnished. Fortunately, Emory appears to now have solid leadership in place, and I think that any damage will be minimal (maybe fewer top applicants this application cycle) and eventually inconsequential (as with other scandals, this, too, will soon blow over).</p>
<p>Once you get exposed to some of the most awesome professors here, 1542431, it’ll hardly be a memory at all (unless the Wheel wants to beat the issue like a dead horse). You’ll be like Fergie having the time of your life. I found my freshman year both so enlightening, exciting, and stressful (yes, a weird but somewhat refreshing combo now that I think about it) that I could hardly pay any attention to these conversations about prestige and status of the school. I was extremely absorbed into my coursework, friends, and intellectual life. If your Emory experience is what it should be, stuff like this will be so trivial.</p>