College and University Blog
Are College Rankings More Important to Schools than Students?
Nearly 30 years ago, US News and World Report began the phenomenon known as college rankings with the first issue of 鈥淎merica鈥檚 Best Colleges.鈥� The Princeton Review, Washington Monthly, Forbes, Kiplinger, Fiske Guide to Colleges and other publications and websites have followed suit over the years. (As you probably guessed, we鈥檙e partial to the around here!)
There鈥檚 no denying that people care about their potential college鈥檚 reputation鈥攁nd no denying that students and parents pay attention to rankings鈥攂ut a recent college scandal has caused the media to deduce that college rankings might be more important to the schools themselves than they are to prospective students.
As reported by the Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, CA is under fire for exaggerating the SAT scores of incoming freshmen for the past six years to help boost statistics used for national college rankings. A senior admissions officer has taken responsibility for the cheating and since resigned. Although Claremont McKenna refuses to identify the employee, some hypothesize that it was the vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid, whose name has been removed from the school鈥檚 website.
The falsified SAT scores may have increased Claremont McKenna鈥檚 ranking from 11th to ninth in the most recent version of the U.S. News ranking of national liberal arts colleges, but the publication issued a claiming that although it will evaluate the impact of the false scores, their current rankings will not be changed. has adjusted Claremont McKenna鈥檚 spot as the 18th ranked private liberal arts college, dropping the school from their Top 100 list completely.
Going Away to College
The Associated Press hypothesizes that the incident occurred in part because of growing competition among colleges and universities to attract top students. In reality, the majority of students attend college within three hours from home, putting little emphasis on national rankings for most of them.
The asked students their opinions on the issue. One commenter that 鈥渢he numbers have very little impact on my thoughts on college instead i look at the overall reputation鈥� while another 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think rankings really matter. Yes it would deter from you applying to a college. No i do not think that rules over other factors.鈥�
What do you think?
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Melissa Rhone earned her Bachelor of Music in Education from the University of Tampa. She resides in the Tampa Bay area and enjoys writing about college, pop culture, and epilepsy awareness.