<p>“I believe in the last year they did participate they were in the LAC top 5”</p>
<p>Just a point of clarification
Idad didn’t say that last year they were in the top 5 but the last year Reed gave information to US news which was 10 years ago.
*Reed president Steven Koblik decided to withdraw the school from the rankings game after he read an April 5, 1995, Wall Street Journal article noting widespread inaccuracies in college rankings. Reporter Steve Stecklow had compared the information given by schools to the Money and U.S. News rankings with similar statistics colleges report to bond agencies and the NCAA. (While there are no penalties for giving inaccurate data to a magazine, lying to bond agencies violates federal securities laws, and lying to the NCAA can also have serious repercussions.)</p>
<p>Stecklow found numerous discrepancies between figures reported to bond agencies and figures reported to magazines. New College of the University of South Florida, for instance, boasted an impressive average SAT score of 1296 in the 1994 Money college guide. Its actual average score was about 40 points less. In what the school’s admissions director called part of a “marketing strategy,” it had neglected to include the bottom-scoring 6 percent of its student body when reporting to Money. Boston’s Northeastern University excluded international and remedial students-about 20 percent of its freshman class-in the numbers it reported to the newsmagazines. Monmouth University in New Jersey overreported its average SAT score by a whopping 200 points, a number the school told Stecklow was fabricated by a former employee. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York reportedly raised its selectivity rate by counting as “rejects” students who were admitted to programs other than those to which they had applied and students who were waitlisted and later admitted.*
<a href=“http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0110/features/abuse.html[/url]”>http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0110/features/abuse.html</a>
When Steve Koblik refused to submit info to Us News- it was dropped to lowest tier despite having the 18th best academic reputation of all LACs in the survey .
It is true that Reed has not had the same graduation rate as comparable schools. I looked into this and found several reasons that made sense to me.
One was that Reed takes chances on students who didn’t peak in high school, my daughter only had a 3.3 GPA but she is a strong writer, they considered that in admission. Because it is such a tough academic school, that can discourage some students, Reed doesn’t coddle and staying in Reed is harder than getting in, the opposite of some schools.
It is also very very small 1300 students, so even the largest depts are fairly small. This can cause problems when you decide you want to change majors to something they don’t have or when a professor who is the only one who teaches what you want to write your thesis on goes on leave.
another disadvantage IMO is that is it is very expensive, only has need based aid and has the appearance of being a school for rich white kids. There actually is more diversity than at first glance, but not alot compared to where many kids attended high school. These disadvantages may wear after a while and be behind the decision of some students to transfer or take time off.</p>