Claremont McKenna College recently announced that it had been sending inflated SAT scores to US News since 2005.

According to news accounts, the vice president and dean of admissions admitted inflating the scores and resigned. The college’s critical reading scores were inflated by an average of 17 points and the math scores were bumped up by an average of 10.5 points.   Here is where you can find a detailed explanation of the manipulation.

Other Colleges Being Deceitful

Claremont McKenna is hardly the only school that has fudged, or in some cases, falsified its numbers. Baylor University, for instance, essentially bribed its incoming freshmen one year into retaking the SAT. The freshmen were already admitted to Baylor so there was no reason to revisit the test. Baylor’s stunt, which managed to boost the school’s average SAT score by 10 points, triggered a huge outcry.

The U.S. Naval Academy was embarrassed when it became public that its applicant rejection rate wasn’t nearly as high as the institution was reporting. At an industry conference, a Clemson University administrator shared a laundry list of ways that her institution was manipulating its figures to boost its college rankings. What prompted gasps from the audience was the administrator’s observation that Clemson rated all other schools in US News’ survey as below average to make it look better.

Schools also falsify the number of their full-time faculty. I did a story in 2009 for my college blog at CBS MoneyWatch that illustrated that schools, in this case the most elite of institutions, gave US News the wrong figures on the percentage of its faculty who were full-time. Here is an excerpt:

You can read my entire post here:  Are Ivy League Schools Fudging Their Numbers?

Despite what US News, which isn’t even a magazine anymore, might suggest, colleges and universities are on the honor system when submitting data.  In a New York Times article yesterday, Robert Morse, who heads up US News’ rankings operation, said he has a team of four to six people reviewing the data. Hmmmm. Really Bob? Really?

Here’s the Real Scandal

In my opinion, the biggest news isn’t that schools are obsessed with looking better in the rankings, but what the rankings have done to our higher-ed system. In pursuit of rankings glory, schools across the country have adopted policies about how they spend their money, whom they admit, and what kind of financial aid they distribute that have negatively impacted millions of American families. Now that’s the real scandal!

I’ll write more about this tomorrow.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and She also writes a college blog for  CBSMoneyWatch and US News. Follow her on Twitter.

Join Me at My College Workshop on Saturday!

There are a few slots left for the college workshop that I will be  holding at the University of California, San Diego this Saturday (Feb. 4). At the Finding the Right College Workshop, you will learn specific strategies to increase your child’s admission chances, ways to evaluate colleges and universities, essential ACT and SAT information and what you need to know about  college rankings.

You can learn more here and sign up for the workshop here.

I wrote a post for my CBS MoneyWatch college blog on Friday that blew out Antioch College’s server.

How did I do that? Actually, it wasn’t me. I was just the messenger for the liberal arts college that had a dramatic announcement to make.

For the next three years, Antioch College in Yellow Springs, OH, is offering all its incoming students full-ride tuition scholarships. With this year’s tuition valued at $26,500, each four-year scholarship is worth at least $106,000. It doesn’t matter what your family’s income is, every accepted student will get the same deal.

The offer will be even better for some students, who file for financial aid and can’t afford the room and board, which is currently $8,628.

Why?

Obviously, when you write that a college is handing out six-figure scholarships to all its students, it attracts a lot of attention. So what is the catch?

As I mention in my CBSMoneyWatch post, Antioch, which was founded by abolitionists in 1850, is crawling out of the grave.

Thanks to horrifically poor management, the liberal arts college shuttered its doors in 2008. Loyal alumni went ballistic and their donations helped to bring the school back to life. The reborn school’s first class (35 students) showed up last fall and Antioch is in the process of taking applications for the next crop of freshmen. Antioch is aiming for 65 to 75 new students in the fall and hopes to have about 300 enrolled students by 2015.

If you’re interested in applying to Antioch, it’s not too late to apply. The admission deadline is Feb. 15.

Don’t Believe Everything You Read

Antioch College is one of the 40 colleges that the late Loren Pope, a former New York Times education editor and college counselor, wrote about in his classic book, Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change The Way You Think About Colleges. Pope wrote the book, which has been incredibly popular for many years, after becoming an unabashed and tireless champion of liberal arts colleges.

The last edition of Colleges That Change Lives is outdated — the most recent version came out in 2006. I thought it was unfortunate and embarrassing that the book was praising Antioch after its (temporary) demise. Pope should have known before updating his book that Antioch had been in what one alumni called a “slow-motion decline” for many years. Here is one graduate’s harrowing account  of Antioch College’s demise.

In my own book, The College Solution (the second edition will be coming out this spring!), I used Antioch’s press coverage to illustrate that you can’t believe everything you read about a college. (That advice applies to college rankings too!) For instance, months before Antioch folded, US News  & World Report‘s Best Colleges guide singled out Antioch for its small class sizes (the school had very few students left!) and its “outstanding” internship program.

Colleges That Change Lives

While Colleges that Change Lives is outdated, I do think that it is a wonderful book to get a sense of what liberal arts colleges are all about. Coincidentally, my two children happened to attend schools that are featured in the book — Beloit College and Juniata College. The 40 colleges profiled in the book formed an organization, Colleges That Change Lives, and you can find information on all these school on its website.

As a group, the CTCL colleges make appearances throughout the year;  here is the link to where the schools will be holding events in 2012. I counted appearances in 22 cities.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller, and a workbook, Shrinking the Cost of College. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

More from The College Solution:

Measuring the Generosity of Colleges

The Colleges Where PhD’s Get Their Start

Financial Aid: Bait and Switch

What schools produce the most undergraduates who end up heading off to graduate school?

The subject came up yesterday because a friend of mine was telling me about a brilliant teenager who wants to eventually get a PhD in physics. The student lives in California, but the mom wants him to apply to schools in the Midwest where she grew up.

I asked my friend if the teenager had checked out Lawrence University.

“Huh?”

I realize that might be your reaction, but here’s the thing – many of the schools that are feeder institutions for the nation’s PhD programs are liberal arts colleges. While most liberal arts colleges are not well-known among families with teenagers, these institutions — and their reputations — are very well known to graduate schools. Lawrence University, a liberal arts college Appleton, WI, for instance, happens to be 10th on the list among all four-year colleges and universities that produce, per capita, the most physics PhDs. (See chart below.)

PhD Feeder Schools

I bet most families assume that attending a public flagship university or a nationally-known private research university is the best ticket to graduate school. If you look at the following lists of the most successful PhD feeder schools for different majors, you will see a somewhat different story. Not a single public university makes any of the lists. The entire Cal State system, however, is considered the No. 1 producer of humanities PhD’s.

I thought you’d be interested in the list of undergraduate institutions that, per capita, produce the most PhD’s. I pulled the names off the website of  Reed College, a liberal arts college in Portland, OR, that is understandably proud of its impressive record of turning out undergrads who end up earning PhD’s. The statistics cover the years 1997 to 2006 and come from the National Science Foundation and the federal government’s education database.

On the list of schools that have the most undergrads who ultimately earn a PhD  in all disciplines, Reed comes in No. 3 behind Cal Tech and Harvey Mudd College.

As you’ll see in the first column below, seven of the 10 schools, whose graduates earn the most PhD’s by the percentage of students are liberal arts colleges.

Bottom Line:

Students can increase their odds of being accepted to graduate school if they earn their bachelor’s degree at a liberal arts college. On a per capita basis, for instance, liberal arts colleges produce twice as many students who earn a PhD in science than other institutions. That makes sense since students have more opportunities to work closely with their professors, they can actually learn more due to small classes and receive glowing recommendations from their teachers, many of which, graduated from prestigious graduate programs.

What’s even more remarkable about the prominence of liberal arts colleges on the science lists is this: many students major in other disciplines at liberal colleges while students who attend schools like Cal Tech and MIT overwhelmingly expect to pursue careers in the sciences and engineering.

I’ve attached a lengthy essay by Thomas R. Cech, a Grinnell College grad, Nobel Laureate and chemistry professor at the University of Colorado, who wrote a fascinating essay contrasting the science experience for undergrads at colleges versus universities. Cech believes science majors at liberal arts colleges enjoy an advantage over undergrads who attend universities. Here are Cech’s thoughts:  Science at Liberal Arts Colleges: A Better Education?

Read more on The College Solution:

50 Schools That Produce the Most Science and Engineering PhDs

The Shocking Truth About Graduation Rates

Getting Bad News From Johns Hopkins

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller, and a workbook, Shrinking the Cost of College. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

My Upcoming College Workshop:

I will be holding my next two college workshops at the University of California, San Diego on Jan. 28 and Feb. 4. At the workshops — you can sign up for one or both – I aim to share with you ways to help you make smart decisions about picking colleges and making them more affordable. You can learn more here and sign up for the workshops here. Lynn O’Shaughnessy

Note: I wanted to let you know that I will be holding my next two college workshops at the University of California, San Diego on Jan. 28 and Feb. 4. At the workshops — you can sign up for one or both – I aim to share with you ways to help you make smart decisions about picking colleges and making them more affordable. You can learn more here and sign up for the workshops here. Lynn O.

The Shocking Trust About Graduation Rates

I met a teenage girl during the fall who was excited about applying to Hampshire College.

She had visited the campus in Amherst, MA, had met professors and talked with students. She was smitten. She and her mother felt good that they had done their due diligence on the college, but then I asked them a question that drew a blank stare: Do you know what Hampshire’s four-year graduation rate is?

Overlooking Graduation Rates

They didn’t know what it was and that’s strangely common. Every year students apply to schools without ever knowing if they have a good shot of graduating in four years. Most college students, by the way, don’t graduate in what used to be the traditional eight semesters.

When I give talks out here in California and share a Power Point slide with four-year grad rates of some of the state universities, it always triggers a collective gasp from the audience. Really!

Examples:

• San Francisco State: 11.7%
• San Jose State 7.7%
• San Diego State 28.5%, which in the Cal State system is a stellar performance!

Now you might assume that students who attend a liberal arts college that costs $54,000 are going to graduate on time, but that’s a dangerous assumption. I happened to know that Hampshire’s graduation rate is strangely low for an expensive, selective school. The school’s four-year grad rate is 54.8%.

I got that figure from College Result Online, which is my favorite source for graduation rates. At College Results Online, which is brought to you by the Education Trust, you can obtain a college’s four, five and six-year rates. Here are Hampshire’s grad statistics:

Comparing Peer Institutions

One of the features that I particularly like about College Results Online is that the site will generate the names of peer institutions for you so you’ll get  a sense about whether a school’s grad rate is good or not for the company it keeps. Feeling good about Hampshire’s grad rate compared to San Jose State won’t cut it because they are entirely different institutions.

The cool part about the site’s software is that you don’t have to know what a school’s comparable institutions are. Simply hit the Similar Colleges button. When I did that in Hampshire’s case, the software generated this list of peer institutions with their four-year grad rates.

You can see that Hampshire lands at the very bottom. While Hampshire’s 54.8% four-year grad rates is alarming, it looks even worse when compared to some of its peers.

How Grad Rates Are Calculated

You should know that grad rates are a bit misleading for all schools simply because of the way that the federal government collects them. These figures only reflect the graduation rates of students who began as full-time freshmen and graduated four years later. Strangely, the federal government never tracks what happens to part-time students.

Equally odd, full-time students who end up transferring to a different college are counted as non-graduates of their original college. So obviously schools where many students leave will have lower grad rates than others. That’s clearly an issue at Hampshire, which leads to another disquieting statistic. Hampshire’s  freshmen retention is low for a highly selective private school. The freshman retention rate is only 79%. What’s with that?

When you are paying top dollar for a private college, the fact that 21% of students leave after freshman year is something to worry about.

State School Example

Now let’s look at a state university. I picked the University of Texas at Austin simply because Texas is the third biggest draw for my blog after California and New York state. In general, state flagship universities have higher grad rates than the vast majority of other public universities.

A student’s chance of graduating on time at the University of Texas, which draws a far more diverse student body, is about as good as getting “tails” on a single coin toss.  (Twenty three percent  of students at UT are low income versus 12% at Hampshire.) Most Texas students require five years to graduate.  When I see a grad rate like this, I’d want to know who is graduating in four years to assess my own child’s chances of being in that group. Far more students return for a second year at Texas.

Now let’s look at some of the Texas flagship’s peers:

There are some flagship peers that clearly possess better grad rates than UT, but in looking at many grad rates for flagships  over the years, I’d say that’s a pretty typical one.

Bottom Line:

When evaluating schools, always look at graduation rates. Even among schools of similar reputations, the grad rates can be dramatically different. Also find out what it would take at any particular school to graduate on time! Do so could ultimately save you tens of thousands of dollars.

I’m going to write more about graduation rates tomorrow.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller, (the second edition should be out this spring!) and she also has written a handy financial workbook, Shrinking the Cost of College, that’s only available on her website.

Note: I wanted to let you know that I will be holding my next two college workshops at the University of California, San Diego on Jan. 28 and Feb. 4. At the workshops — you can sign up for one or both – I aim to share with you ways to help you make smart decisions about picking colleges and making them more affordable. You can learn more here and sign up for the workshops here. Lynn O.

Getting Hassled About College Choices

I received an email yesterday from a mom in Southern California, whose daughter Nicole is getting grief about the Southern universities that she has applied to.  Karen’s email raises a lot of interesting issues including preconceived notions about schools, the tendency of some parent(s) to push kids to attend their alma mater or state schools and a lack of understanding of how you can find schools that are more affordable. Aiming too high academically, for instance, can result in a teenager getting  aid packages stuffed with $55,000 worth of loans.

I’d love for you to read Karen’s note and share your thoughts in the comment box below.  Karen covers a lot in this note and I’m eager to read what you think! I will comment on the letter in my post tomorrow.

Email from a Concerned Mom

Thank you for your advice on this website and the books.  I have tried to incorporate the knowledge that I’ve learned in helping my daughter, who is a senior. We went to South and North Carolina to visit some smaller schools first (Furman, Elon, Davidson) and took a detour to Clemson.  The other schools were too small for her and she did like Clemson – so we started to look at schools a bit larger including Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University.   With their lower costs and merit scholarships, our cost would be close to what we would pay for a University of California campus.  We are still waiting to hear back from others including Baylor University (which has a scholarship calculator on its website) and she is expecting merit aid from that school too.  I am sure she will receive flak for Baylor as well.

Nicole’s Merit Awards

Here is what she has gotten so far:

Texas Christian University (60k scholarship -15k a yr)

Southern Methodist University (48k scholarship – 12k a yr)

Clemson University (40k scholarship – 10k a yr)

University of San Diego ($0)

She has received the most negative comments about Clemson and TCU.  She really liked both schools when we visited them and both schools have Honors Colleges and Residences.  Clemson is a bit larger than what she was looking for, but the honor colleges and residences make the school seem smaller.

Why the Criticism?

I think most of the criticism is triggered by the rankings and locations – South versus Northeast.  Somehow anything in the Northeast must be better!  Also, many here in California are just not used to going to a different state for school and since many at my daughter’s school are first generation – the parents go by rankings and name. We used to live in Kansas City and most of her friends there already have selected Kansas State or University of Kansas. Our old neighbor’s daughter went to St. Olaf College. and many there also wondered why. I guess it is just that most kids usually stay close to home for college even in Kansas.

When we first started to look, the kids just made fun of her for looking at Furman and Elon – definitely schools not known out here!  I was impressed by the schools and wished she would have liked them!

We have used the tools for looking for schools with smaller class sizes, learning-based communities and those offering merit aid.  She has also learned about applying to the right schools and being realistic about matching up her grades, extracurriculars and test scores with universities.

My daughter has seen too many kids apply to schools even though they barely made the bottom of the 25-75% range. They are disappointed when they have gotten rejection letters or received no merit money.   We have also witnessed how family income comes into play.  She has seen many wealthy kids from our area get into Ivies (or other Ivy top tier) with stats a bit lower than some of her friends who were rejected even though they are National Merit scholars with perfect GPA’s and near perfect SAT’s, but who need aid.

Why Not USC?

While my daughter is pretty much sold on the idea of attending one of the schools on her list, the status and name issue keeps creeping in not only by her peers, but teachers and family members.  First, I am dealing with my husband’s family, who are LA natives.  My husband and his family attended University of Southern California for both their undergraduate and graduate work. Consequently, Nicole is not only battling the argument that one can only get a job attending a “name school,” but also that USC offers greater opportunities. And then there is the distance issue.  My mother- in-law believes kids should only attend college within a one-hour drive away from home so they can return every weekend and you can easily go take care of your kids if they are sick.  Hence my search for out-of-state colleges, gasp, that are not considered good, has been very alien to them.

My research shows that USC is different than it was in the 1950’s and the 1980’s when the relatives attended.  My husband’s family got a lot of money to send their kids there.  So I was able to show that the SAT range has gone up more than 300 points since then, and while my husband’s scores were in the upper 25% range then, our daughter with better SAT & ACT scores and higher GPA’s than her dad, is not in the upper 25% range now.

 Pressure from Her Teachers for Big Name Schools

Her teachers and peers have commented to her about her acceptances into some of these schools as “I thought you are smart.” She is in the top 3% of her school in Irvine – her 2012 class has 14 National Merit Scholars, and in last year’s class there were large numbers of students that went to the Ivies, UCLA and UC Berkeley.  Her one teacher pushed her to apply to Duke University.  She does like the school and she applied.  She is practical and has thought about later that they only accept 2 AP courses and she will have taken 9 (she has gotten 5’s on past tests), and she wouldn’t get merit money (not in the top 25%), so this would be very expensive.  So she is now thinking that since she is majoring in the sciences and plans to go to grad school in the health field, she needs to balance undergraduate cost with educational experience and it wouldn’t be wise to get into debt over Duke.  However, here is what she is being told – you have a better chance at grad school acceptances or med school going to Duke, UCLA, or USC.

Greater Competition This Year

I guess we are also noticing that she is in a very competitive graduation class – the application stats of the students at the places she has been applying are greater than in years prior.  In the past with her resume, she may have earned a full ride at some of these places, but is getting 10-15k off per year ($40k-$60k scholarships) instead at many of the schools she targeted.  Also, the economy maybe pushing high-achieving kids to look and apply at schools offering merit money more so than in the past.  She also applied and got into University of San Diego; however in the past many kids she knows got over 20k off with lower stats and extracurriculas, and she got in and didn’t get merit offers (as of now).  She was going to use that as a local backup if she could get the costs to a UC level!  But it seems there is more money out-of-state since many of her peers will not apply out of state so more competition here!

Any Advice?

If you have input in your columns about how to handle legacy parents and grandparents, going away to school and how to handle the “name” game with schools and teachers, I would greatly appreciate it. And again, thank you – at least she said she knows she is going to school and she likes where she has gotten in so far!

Karen

What Do You Think?

Okay folks, I’d love for you to weigh in on any aspect of Karen’s note. Please respond in the box below.

I want to give a big thanks to all of my regular visitors — and the new folks too — who helped to make 2011 the best year ever for The College Solution! I know 2011 was my best year because I use Google Analytics to keep track of how many people visit my college blog.

Now that we’re in a new year, I used the analytic tool today to see what my most popular college blog posts were for 2011. If you missed them the first time, I thought you might enjoy reading them.

1. Don’t Believe the Sticker Price: The Most Expensive Colleges in the Country

I wrote this post in July after the U.S. Department of Education released its list of the most expensive state and private colleges and universities in the country. Seven of the 10 priciest institutions are art schools and music conservatories. Unless you’re wealthy, I’d stay away from these schools.

2. Popular College Majors With the Highest and Lowest Unemployment

I took a look at the most popular college majors and discovered which ones have the best and worst unemployment rates. Architecture majors seems to face the lousiest prospects while medical technology technicians enjoy the best.

3. Do You Know the Difference Between a College and a University?

In this May post, I explain the difference between universities and colleges. I firmly believe that if more students understood the differences, more undergrads would be enrolling at colleges.

4. Best and Worst Paying College Degrees

I personally don’t believe you should choose college majors just because of potential pay and frankly most students can’t qualify for the best-paying jobs because most of them require math skills.

4.  Grinnell College: A College Admission Success Story

This was a story about a kid from St. Louis who won the educational lottery when got into Grinnell College, which is among a few dozen schools in the country that offer the best financial aid policies.

5. 10 Great Ways to Shrink the Cost of College

The best way to cut college costs is to be an educated consumer. You an start by checking out these money-saving tips.

6. 30 Liberal Arts Colleges In or Near Cities

I wrote this post because so many teenagers want to attend college in a city. Many liberal arts colleges, including that pair that my kids attend(ed) are not near urban areas, which is what turns off some teenagers who believe (rightly or wrongly) that they have to live in cities during college. I wrote this post for these kids. You should also read the next day’s post where I include the liberal arts schools that I had overlooked : More Liberal Arts Colleges In Or Near Cities

7. Anatomy of a Stingy College and a Generous One

This was one of my favorite blog posts of the year. I compare two Pennsylvania schools — Muhlenberg College and Drexel University – to explain why it’s important examine the financial aid policies of individual schools. FYI, Drexel is the stingy school.

8. Getting Into College With Learning Disabilities

David Montesano, a college consultant in Bellevue, WA, wrote this great guest post for high schools students with learning disabilities. You’ll find a lot of helpful advice on this topic.

9. What is the Best Student Loan?

The best college loan for students is the Stafford Loan. I provide a link to a bunch of my student loan posts.

10. Financial Aid and Divorce

I write about a teenager with divorced parents who blew it when developing her list of schools. The blog posts shares how different schools treat families of divorce.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution, an Amazon bestseller,  and a financial aid workbook, Shrinking the Cost of College: Great Ways to Cut the Price of a Bachelor’s Degree, which is only available on her website.