Around this time of year, any high school senior anxiously awaiting college admissions decisions would surely like to bump up their SAT scores by 10 or 20 points, as demonstrated by the high number of students enrolling in SAT preparation courses.

Likewise, many colleges could benefit from increasing their average SAT scores in order to raise their academic prestige and draw in more high-achieving students.

Earlier this week, an official at Claremont McKenna College was found to have done just that – inflating the scores of the college’s past six freshman classes.

Of course, now that the facts have come to light, this isolated incident has backfired on Claremont McKenna and will likely tarnish the liberal arts school’s reputation, even after the school official responsible has resigned.

But why would such a prestigious institution risk so much just for a few extra points? After all, isn’t it the applicant’s job to be this concerned about test scores?

Unfortunately, we find ourselves in a time when U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings are regarded as a legitimate indicator of a school’s quality by many potential applicants. Students are no longer the only ones competing against one another with these arbitrary indicators of quality.

I am definitely not condoning Claremont McKenna’s actions, which reflect negatively on the entire college ranking process because a college has stooped to this level in order to maintain its ranking.

Disembodied statistics like SAT scores really say very little about a school’s quality of education, the diversity of the student body, facilities and student services, and other factors that enrolled students find most important.

But to the wide-eyed high school students frantically cross-checking their SAT scores, grade point averages and hours of community service against those listed by their top-choice colleges, those statistics mean everything. Falling below the average in any of these categories is grounds for a near panic attack.

School rankings and compilations of freshman class data do have value: They let potential students know if they are on track for admission, or whether they should re-evaluate which schools they are considering.

However, the quality of an institution should not be entirely reduced to a formula, in which subjective characteristics regarding student life are somehow translated into a score to be compared against those of other schools.

A 20-point discrepancy on the SAT does not provide enough information to decide between two applicants or two colleges.

Prospective students should bear in mind that top schools base admittance of applicants on much more than raw statistics, and high school students should likewise base their college decisions on more than what U.S. News has to say.

Meanwhile, schools must realize that academic integrity is much more valuable in the long run than a slightly higher ranking. Just because a college holds a high spot in the rankings does not make it the right choice for every student.

Email Grano at

kgrano@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to opinion@media.ucla.edu or tweet at us @DBOpinion.