
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 20, 1995                   TAG: 9504200055
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MISLEADING GUIDES

ONE STORY these days about college cheating has nothing to do with students getting test answers in advance or paying someone to produce a paper. The story, rather, is that some of the colleges themselves are cooking statistics to get better ratings in national guides used by high-school students and their parents in deciding where to apply for admission.

The Wall Street Journal took information supplied by 100 colleges and universities to magazines and guidebooks like U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" and Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, and contrasted it with data supplied to debt-rating agencies when the institutions wanted to sell bonds or notes. In the latter case, lying would have violated federal securities laws.

The newspaper found more than two dozen discrepancies, almost all of which just happened to make the schools look more scholastically competitive. Average SAT scores of the student body were higher than the figures reported to Moody's Investor Service, say, or the percentage of applicants accepted for admission was lower.

While colleges decry the guides as misleading even when the numbers are true, they nevertheless feel compelled to participate because they are competing for students. And the students look to the guides for help in figuring out which colleges offer what they're looking for - presumably, in many cases, the best education possible.

In some cases, the discrepancies are simple errors. More often, they're intentional. One college admitted dropping the bottom 6 percent of scores to raise the average SAT scores of its freshman class by 40 points - as a "marketing strategy." Some try to justify deceptive figures as more representative of the norm than averages lowered by students in special classifications, such as economically disadvantaged. Some simply admit their statistics are fabricated.

Either way, they're cheating. They're teaching students that honesty is the best policy - except when dishonesty works better. Wrong answer.

by CNB