Emory Finds Intentional Misreporting of SAT/Rank Data, Revamps Procedures

Colleges & Universities Emory University
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<p>RamRay - you have put more words in my mouth than I thought possible. Hardly know where to start. I do think Emory committed fraud, but factually the numerical difference with respect to the effect it would have had on their ranking was small. It is a mathematical formula, and the overall weighting is 1.5%. Look it up. I don’t know how one can argue with a straightforward mathematical equation. You plug in the wrong numbers, then you plug in the right numbers, and the difference in the end results, due to the very low weighting, is miniscule. I do not know how you are thinking it can magically be otherwise.</p>

<p>I am not that familiar with the Iona case, I was basing my statement on what YOU said, which was that they were “not rated”. Of course you also said they dropped 30 points, which I am not sure how that is possible if they were not rated at all. I just assumed you meant they dropped out of the rankings because USNWR didn’t rank them at all, which is what YOU said. I then speculated that USNWR did not trust the data they subsequently provided, because otherwise, as bernie correctly says, they should have had a ranking based on the new data. Or maybe Iona didn’t provide data until they were sure they had cleaned up their act. But I made it clear that I was speculating by saying “I suspect”. Surely anyone can understand that is just hypothesizing for the sake of putting a theory out there. If in fact they were rated and dropped 30 places, which is also possible from your contradictory statements, then my hypothesis makes no sense. I just thought your statement of saying they were “Not Rated” was so specific, it was the more likely to be true.</p>

<p>It is quite possible that USNWR will not trust the Emory data either, and show then as “Not Rated” next time. Personally I doubt that, I think that Emory has made a good enough case that the data is now correct that USNWR will take it, and possibly print corrected versions of the old rankings if they get corrected data and if it makes enough of a difference to be pertinent to anyone.</p>

<p>I have no idea where you came up with saying that I think that Emory is above reproach or whatever assessment the peer review decides to give them. I mean, I think the whole idea of the peer assessment and the USNWR rankings is a crock to begin with, but I never said anything like what you seem to think I said. In fact, I said that the way this fraud they perpetrated could have a bigger effect than the 1.5% is if the peer and counselor assessment punishes them, just the opposite of what you seem to think I am saying. But I have no idea if that will come to pass or not. We will see.</p>

<p>Honestly, not to be mean or anything, but you don’t seem to comprehend what you are reading very well. In the end, you seem to be trying to distract from your original statement that USNWR can somehow go outside their formula and “punish” Emory for this transgression by dropping it more places than the data and formula dictate. There is zero basis for that scenario, and frankly it is absurd to postulate it.</p>

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<p>So if an Emory student cheats on only one test that won’t affect the final grade outcome, should it be ignored?</p>

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<p>ohiopublic - Of course not, although the scenarios are not exactly the same. More analogous would be if you had a team assignment of say 4 students, and 1 was found to have cheated without the knowledge of the other 3, should they all be punished? Neither analogy is perfect. But what should Emory’s punishment be, if that is the proper outcome? There is absolutely nothing official about USNWR rankings. Now I guess they misreported the data to the Department of Education, and theoretically there might be legal ramifications for that. I have no idea, but one can imagine it could be true.</p>

<p>But in any case, it is not being ignored and I don’t think anyone said it should be. They are being held to account in the courst of public opinion, and as I said earlier, to the extent this was somewhat about rankings, it could hurt them in the rankings through a drop in peer assessment. It could also cost them in admissions if students got skittish about attending Emory based on this incident, but personally I find that very very unlikely.</p>

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<p>WOW! You really went to town with what I wrote, fallenchemist. A long, laborious response that took much of what of I said out of context and inferred far more that I said.
I could write an equally long response addressing your over-reactive points, but no need for all this hyperbolae ad nasusm.</p>

<p>I was only concerened that USN&WR would see the length of time and respond to Emery as they have to other schools…there is presidence for this. That is all I was trying to point out, so lighten up there camper!</p>

<p>Emory will be fine. Let’s leave it at that.</p>

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<p>Really. That is a laugh when you say that I “decided” something that posited as a clear hypothetical (and called me irrational for it besides), that I was myopic in looking only at the 1.5% of the formula when in fact I absolutely said this could affect Emory (not Emery) more than that, I certainly never said nor implied that I thought Emory’s action was just a “small difference in data”, I simply said that factually the difference the data makes in the formula used in USNWR is small. Those are extremely different things, and the leap you took from that is inexcusable. I took nothing out of context or was more than what you said, it is there in black and white for all to see.</p>

<p>And speaking of precedence (again, spelling), you still have not explained how Iona could be both unrated and drop 30 points. Are you ever going to?</p>

<p>You may think I need to lighten up, but I just hate when simple, clear statements are totally butchered. Let’s leave it at that, if you want.</p>

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<p>Really??</p>

<p>Well, thank you for catching my typos…typing on the fly with an I-phone can do that.</p>

<p>I guess you really can’t see the tone of what you say and how you say it, so I will address the one question you seem to need answering:</p>

<p>“And speaking of precedence (again, spelling), you still have not explained how Iona could be both unrated and drop 30 points. Are you ever going to?”</p>

<p>First, where did I say they were both unrated and dropped 30 points in the same year? Of course they were 30th one year then dropped to Not Rated the following year; there can only be one ranking per year. I am surprised that you could not understand that, but I am glad to have ended any confusion (butchering?) I might have caused you.</p>

<p>I really don’t wish to engage your bellicose rhetoric and disputatious persona with more postings, so I will leave you to your thread and hope you find this simple and clear.</p>

<p>You need not respond as I won’t return to this thread…unless you have a compulsion to respond.</p>

<p>BTW…do you know what a ■■■■■ is?</p>

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<p>

You cannot even remember what you wrote? That is not a drop of 30 points (although places would be a better term than points). A drop of 30 places would be to #60. Seems quite elementary.</p>

<p>I absolutely know what a ■■■■■ is. Apparently you don’t.</p>

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<p>Without addressing the accuracy of the 30-point drop, remember the US News methodology. Schools receive relative scores of up to 100 points and are ranked accordingly. So, a drop of 30 points (not places) could indeed lead to 30th to Not Rated, rather than 30th to 60th.</p>

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<p>Actually a drop of 30 points would have led ot a much lower ranking than that, since there is usually less that a point difference between schools (100 point scale, around 200 schools that get ranked in the Liberal Arts Colleges category).</p>

<p>But this was actually rather easy to resolve, I just had to Google “Iona college ranking 2012” (which quickly showed that Iona is indeed unranked) and the blog posting of the head man at USNWR for rankings said it all</p>

<p>

<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2012/04/27/update-to-iona-colleges-2012-best-colleges-ranking[/url]”>http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/college-rankings-blog/2012/04/27/update-to-iona-colleges-2012-best-colleges-ranking&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>So no calculations at all, therefore no points, no place, no nothing. RamRay just totally misstated it no matter which way it could have been interpreted, when he added the statement “…a drop of 30 points!” That turned out to be complete nonsense. As I knew it had to be.</p>

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<p>I am an Emory alum and this rankings scandal did not surprise me. The school aggressively tries to boost its image because it has trouble attracting qualified students who can pay the full tuition. An even bigger scandal is that the school for years recruited international students from Korea who were unqualified (and many are rumored to have paid other people to take the SAT for them). The president of the University actually had events at the Korean embassy. They did this because they don’t give international students any financial aid but they couldn’t attract many international students from other countries for the longest time. Now at the top international school in Korea, Seoul International School, no students chose Emory last year because its reputation has been ruined in the country.</p>

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<p>@trex792</p>

<p>I agree with the spirit of your comment – that is, the part about Emory trying to boost its image – but how did you even come by the rest of that information?</p>

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<p>Look at this link from Seoul International School.
<a href=“http://siskorea.org/_uploads/docs/scan0002_1.pdf[/url]”>http://siskorea.org/_uploads/docs/scan0002_1.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
Also, Korea is a tight knit society in many ways. Everyone talks and these things get around.</p>

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<p>All you had to say was that you were Korean.</p>

<p>Also, that’s class of 2011, which would make it a year old. 2012?</p>

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<p>Pretty sure the same story for 2012. At less rigorous international schools a lot of students go to Emory, GW and NYU.</p>

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<p>Emory University has no plans to audit the data used to rate its graduate programs, even though leaders recently revealed the college submitted inflated undergraduate admissions data used by rankings publications.
College officials also refused to release the investigative report about the inflated data. As a private university Emory doesn’t have to share the report, but Claremont McKenna College, another private college caught in a similar scandal, posted its findings online.
“I’m puzzled they didn’t release the report,” said Brian Kelly, U.S. News & World Report Editor and Chief Content Officer. “If I’m a consumer, I’m suspicious.”
U.S. News is one of several publications that received Emory’s incorrect information. It didn’t affect Emory’s No. 20 ranking, he said.
Still, Kelly questioned why Emory doesn’t take the initiative and review its graduate programs. Various publications rank law, business and medical schools.
<a href=“http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/emory-no-need-to-review-grad-school-data/nRMTx/[/url]”>http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/emory-no-need-to-review-grad-school-data/nRMTx/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Administrators were not able to say exactly how long the university had been reporting the incorrect numbers or why the practice began. They did note, however, that there were individuals within the responsible departments while the practice was taking place who questioned the practice but never reported it other than to their supervisors.</p>

<p>But while the two cases look similar, there are significant differences. At Claremont McKenna, a single admissions dean admitted to misreporting data to appease administrators’ expectations while following a different enrollment strategy that placed less emphasis than the top administrators wanted on grades and test scores.
The Emory case was more systemic. Emory officials said they could not determine why the misreporting happened, but the practice spanned the tenures of at least two admissions deans and also involved the university’s director of institutional research. Staff members in those offices were also aware that the practice was taking place.</p>

<p>Read more: [Emory</a> misreported admissions data for more than a decade | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“Emory misreported admissions data for more than a decade”>Emory misreported admissions data for more than a decade)
Inside Higher Ed </p>

<p>Read more: [Emory</a> misreported admissions data for more than a decade | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“Emory misreported admissions data for more than a decade”>Emory misreported admissions data for more than a decade)
Inside Higher Ed </p>

<p>[Emory</a> misreported admissions data for more than a decade | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/08/20/emory-misreported-admissions-data-more-decade]Emory”>Emory misreported admissions data for more than a decade)</p>

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<p>It is unbelievable that representatives of Emory would talk about ratings in the same discussion that they discuss lying about their scores. Good lord!! Is there no shame at all? I would expect this" We are so mortified by the lack of integrity of our own administration and staff that we realize we can’t, in good conscience, inquire about the integrity of our application pool of 18 year olds while admitting we lied about scores. So we are going to skip a year of recruiting, take a year to evaluate out own values, review ethics as they pertain to the full scope of issues relevant to educating young adults. We may even write a few essays about “What lesson did we learn after it was revealed we cheated”. Then, if we feel we are ready, we will resume recruiting. We fully believe we should be taken out of the ratings game for the year." But no. There are representatives from the college considering whether or not efforts to stop the cheating will hurt the ratings. What?</p>

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<p>^It’s not all Emory’s fault. The “system” is designed in a way so that reputation trumps everything–including morality and decency (not that these aren’t important; just not as important). Emory, like most colleges, wants to–ahem, has to–preserve its rep and image. </p>

<p>The real world loves to play the game “Reputation = Quality.” What are you going to do?</p>

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<p>Insidelane, I agree with you. The problem is a circular argument. This may have already been covered, but (I just got an update on this thread and haven’t had time to go through the other responses) supposedly Forbes is the only magazine to trust ratings. US News can’t be trusted on any fronts, and the colleges and the guidance counselors will tell you that. Andrew Ferguson, the reporter who wrote “Crazy U” knows the statistician who revived the dying magazine, and he began the ratings bonanza. At first none of the colleges wanted to participate, so he told them then he would calculate his own ranking on them (to that effect). However, once the colleges saw other colleges actively participating, I guess they felt they had to “cheat” and “fudge” numbers. Emory isn’t the only one lying. This year GWU got “punished” (so to speak) by the US News who removed them because they were caught tinkering with numbers and they are suspended until the next edition. </p>

<p>It is all so ludicrous to me, because if you go to a site like **************.com, the kids tell a totally different story about each university. I would trust that first and other sites where students give input. There are many other colleges cheating and just haven’t gotten caught yet. It’s the same as the kids who cheat - so many others do too, but the schools either close their eyes, or they haven’t gotten caught either. </p>

<p>A mom just told me that it doesn’t end after college admissions (where so many kids have packagers/have their essays written/doctor their extracurriculars, etc. that some kids at “top name university” email their homework to their parents to do for them. When parents help their kids get into colleges that they should not be in to begin with, the cheating perpetuates and the cycle never stops. </p>

<p>It harms everyone. I will never forget the classic Harvard post years ago about a kid who cheated his way through med school. The person could not name the student, but he did post “if you ever need a neurosurgeon, don’t go to the one on X street and Y avenue in Z city.” That about said it all…</p>

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<p>Four reasons to ignore USNWR college rankings:</p>

<p>[4</a> reasons to ignore U.S. News’ college rankings - CBS News](<a href=“http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57510906/4-reasons-to-ignore-u.s-news-college-rankings/]4”>http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505145_162-57510906/4-reasons-to-ignore-u.s-news-college-rankings/)</p>

<p>Forbes list is better: [America’s</a> Top Colleges List](<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/top-colleges/list/]America’s”>Forbes America’s Top Colleges List 2022) Emory is 46 on this list.</p>

<p>I think they need to rank on safety and morals: How many colleges cover up sexual assaults on campus? How many hide their mold issues (that are causing mold toxicity and neurotoxins in the brain in alarming numbers); how many kids cheat? how many kids are admitted because of wealth NOT brains (my guess based on the number of private high school trust fund kids who are out partying and getting their stomachs pumped, snorting adderall and are dumber than doorknobs, I’d say a lot - and the partying continues on in college; and then daddy gets them jobs). That is the bottom line. It’s all about the money. If you don’t need fin aid and can pay, it really doesn’t matter what your credentials are. The heads of the schools support the highest contributors, and that’s why a lot of schools lie about their numbers. They just are smart enough not to get caught. It’s so disgraceful.</p>

<p>Kudos to Emory for owning up to something that really doesn’t matter since it is coming from USNWR which was accused of making up numbers as well.</p>