Louisiana State University Baton Rouge would like you to believe its holistic admissions system has led to its most “academically accomplished” freshman class in history. Don’t drink this misleading Flavor Aid.

Last week, the school released information about the incoming class, noting an average ACT score of 26.5 and grade point average of 3.82. This was said to set records in both categories and has come despite the decision five years ago to move to admissions that deemphasized test scores and GPA in favor of intangible criteria, making utilization of such scores optional. This has been in direct violation of Louisiana Board of Regents minimum admission standards which requires an ACT (or SAT equivalent) score of 25 for first-time freshmen, although as many as four percent of all entering students may not meet that and/or any other admission criteria.

The impact was felt immediately as the school retreated further away from meeting the four percent criterion, which BOR had and continued to ignore enforcing. In 2017, the year before the change, the average ACT was 25.6, although the lowest quarter of percentiles was just 23, which demonstrates the school wasn’t close to the four percent standard or else that would have been close to 25 (keep in mind that with 25 as the theoretical floor for at least 96 percent of entering first-time freshmen, a distribution of scores would be, in graphic form, long-tailed to the right, pulling up the mean and various other percentile measures).

In 2018, with the start of the new regime, the average fell to 25.5 and the lowest quarter percentile cutoff to 22. In 2019, these recovered slightly to their 2017 levels. But in 2020, things retreated further, with the average down to 25.4 and lowest quarter percentile cutpoint back to 22.

So, to boost these and to deflect from the fact that holistic admissions in fact – which only made more prevalent the existing trend of ignoring standards – has lowered standards, starting in 2021 with Pres. William Tate IV assuming university leadership applying students were given the option of not reporting test scores at all. This created the incentive for lower-scoring applicants not to reveal that information, because it wouldn’t help them, while for those who had at least a 25 it was a plus factor (because as long as they demonstrated that, the fulfillment of core high school courses, and a GPA threshold of 3.0 on those, automatically they were in) so they had every incentive to report it.

Not surprisingly, in 2021 the mean jumped to 26 and the lowest quarter percentile level to 23. In 2022, the lower level held but the mean slipped back to 25.5 as undoubtedly as more and more marginal students gained admission in violation of the unenforced BOR standards.

So, time to put the thumb on the scales again. This fall, LSU decided to use not the ACT composite – the score computed from different categorical scores on a single exam attempt – but to report the “superscore” – the best scores in categories across all attempts, which for any multiple-taker with the exception of all highest categorical scores on a single attempt will boost the reported average.

Thus, it wouldn’t be an accident that the average would pop an entire point, with likely more low-quality applicants and opting out of reporting and rejiggering the scoring to push it higher for those who do report. And if this is the standard used in the admission decision, it would trigger another violation of BOR standards, which set forth that the composite is the standard on which admission would be judged.

This makes any comparison from now to the past completely apples and oranges. You cannot credibly say by ACT numbers this is the most academically accomplished class because of all the self-reporting and re-scaling compared to past class data. It’s absolutely misleading.

(Nor do increasing average GPA numbers mean anything. There has been such hyperinflation in their numbers among high schools that as a discriminatory instrument, much less as a minimum benchmark, it’s next to useless at capturing the concept it represents. Part of that comes the former standard of perfection, 4.0, being breached by extra credit granted for certain kinds of classes that pushes maximum points awarded higher than that level. For example, the honors enrollees this fall average a 4.22.)

Unfortunately, this puffery has real world negative consequences. LSU also crowed about how retention rates and graduation rates climbed. Many things go into this – exogenous factors such as economic fortunes (not good not long after Democrat Pres. Joe Biden took office), ancillary programs to support students staying enrolled, but also instructional demands. If instructors lighten up in standards, fewer students will flunk out or feel pressured to move out of academic and into something more suitable to their abilities and temperaments. An increase in retention when the overall student body is becoming less capable of doing adequate university work opens the possibility that standards are sliding – perhaps under pressure of administrators wanting to compensate for student cohorts of lesser ability to make sure more can stay in school. This cheats both students and taxpayers.

Be an informed consumer of whatever self-serving news releases come from LSU or any government agency. That critical perspective reveals claims by LSU, which fly in the face of reason that if you lower admission standards through deemphasizing valid measures of learning ability in favor of subjective criteria, aren’t to be trusted.