After a little while of defending the “win-win” integrity of providing financial incentives for their freshmen to retake the SAT, Baylor University has dropped the program:

After several days in which educators and admissions experts nationally lambasted its plan to pay accepted applicants to raise their SAT scores (and presumably the institution’s ranking in U.S. News & World Report), Baylor is admitting a mistake.

Lori Fogleman, a spokeswoman, said in an interview Thursday night that the university “goofed” by offering the cash incentives. “We have heard the criticism,” she said. “It just had the appearance of impropriety. It raised unnecessary questions.”

[ . . . ]

Because Baylor adopted the program after a drop in its SAT average — and amid a concerted effort to raise its U.S. News rankings — the payments were widely criticized as an attempt to game the system. Critics said that Baylor was becoming the “poster child for SAT misuse,” and faculty and students said that they were embarrassed by the initiative.

From Inside Higher Ed.

Well, this is new. It strikes me as somewhat unethical and probably not the sort of thing a Christian university should be doing:

Baylor University in Waco, Tex., which has a goal of rising to the first tier of national college rankings, last June offered its admitted freshmen a $300 campus bookstore credit to retake the SAT, and $1,000 a year in merit scholarship aid for those who raised their scores by at least 50 points.

Of this year’s freshman class of more than 3,000, 861 students received the bookstore credit and 150 students qualified for the $1,000-a-year merit aid, said John Barry, the university’s vice president for communications and marketing.

“We’re very happy with the way it worked out,” Mr. Barry said in a telephone interview. “The lion’s share of students ended up with the $300 credit they could use in our bookstore. That’s not going to make or break the bank for anybody. But it’s sure been appreciated by our students and parents.”

The offer, which was reported last week by the university’s student newspaper, The Lariat, raised Baylor’s average SAT score for incoming freshmen to 1210, from about 1200, Mr. Barry said. That score is one of the factors in the rankings compiled by U.S. News & World Report.

See the NY Times article here. So, they are spending [(861x$300)+(150x$1000)=] $408,300 to jack up their score an average of 10 points? Even ethical issues aside, is such a small increase even worth nearly a half a million dollars? One point brought up in the article is that only freshman were given the opportunity. One sophomore is quoted: “I think the people who put forth this decision completely compromised what they say Baylor is about: its Christian values, the integrity of Baylor, the integrity of Baylor 2012.”

Update (10/15/2008): The Chronicle for Higher Education has a more thorough assessment than the NY Times posted. I appreciated this bit, which seems to confirm my doubts that this was an effective plan, ethics aside:

The Lariat reported that the retesting policy raised the freshman class’s average score to 1210 from 1200. That jump, however, would not alter the college’s ranking, according to Robert J. Morse, director of data research at U.S. News. “This shows a lack of understanding of the statistics used in our rankings,” he said in an e-mail message. “If they think that 10 SAT points makes a ‘real’ difference, they are wrong.”