You Get What You Measure

You get what you measure. This article discusses cheating by some prestigious colleges on how they are ranked. When you allow folks to measure themselves and there is big money at stake, you can count on cheating. This has happened in the evaluation of US colleges as well and teacher compensation in our elementary and high schools.

But more importantly why does a higher average SAT score for incoming freshmen rank a college more favorably? The job of the college is to impart an education not recruit the most educated. I can understand measuring test scores for graduates compared to test scores of incoming students – but that is not the case.