New debate over U.S. News college rankings

Tulane University officials were preparing to send statistics to U.S. News & World Report for its annual graduate school rankings in December when they noticed something peculiar: sharp drops in admissions test scores and applications to their business school.

Their curiosity became alarm and then embarrassment, as the New Orleans university discovered and disclosed that the business school's admissions figures from previous years had been falsified. Soon afterward, Bucknell University in Pennsylvania announced that for several years it had reported inflated SAT scores for incoming students.

These and similar revelations in the past year have come from Claremont McKenna College in California, Emory University in Atlanta and George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

In each case, the highly regarded schools acknowledged that they had submitted incorrect test scores or overstated the high school rankings of their incoming freshmen.

At a time of intense competition for high-achieving students, the episodes have renewed debate about the validity of the U.S. News rankings, which for three decades have influenced parents and students shopping for colleges.

"In any highly competitive environment, there is always a temptation to cut corners," said Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education, which represents university presidents.

In some recent cases, college officials said an employee intentionally submitted inaccurate data. In others, it was unclear whether the mistake was intentional. GWU attributed its errors to a decade-old flaw in data-reporting systems.

A survey of 576 college admissions officers conducted by Gallup last summer for the online news outlet Inside Higher Ed found that 91 percent believe other colleges had falsely reported standardized test scores and other admissions data. A few said their own college had done so.

U.S. News editor Brian Kelly said the number of schools that have corrected their record is "a pretty small universe," which he considers a sign that reporting problems are not pervasive.

He said he would not be surprised if a few more cases emerged. "If it was a stampede I would be surprised," he added, "and that might cause us to rethink some things."

The rankings, a major force in higher education since the 1980s, sort colleges and universities into various lists: best in the nation, best in a region, best value and so on.

Critics have contended the rankings are highly subjective. Some colleges refuse to participate in the surveys -- and receive rankings anyway.