Diana Senechal says that Emory is not likely the only university that fudged the data to raise its rankings in U.S. News & World Report.
I imagine Emory isn’t the only one that fabricated its data. There’s a lot of subtle fudging going on all over the place–and with subtle fudging comes not-so-subtle fudging.
What about all the colleges that boost their application rates so that they can appear more selective? That, too, is a way of fudging the numbers–and it’s widespread. A New York Times article from 2010 describes this phenomenon in detail:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/education/edlife/07HOOVER-t.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
I wrote a satirical piece this week on the subject of data-fudging in higher education. When I wrote it, I wasn’t aware of the Emory story, but I might as well have been.
http://www.cronknews.com/2012/08/29/universitys-fake-following-sets-world-record/
I’m dismayed that reality is turning into smoke and mirrors but it happened to Native Americans and it happened to African Americans and now it is happening to white folks. At least white folks that don’t make a zillion dollars. Everything is illusion and all that matters is making the folks in charge think that all is well, even if it isn’t. As long as somebody “we” know makes a buck, all is well. Oh dear.