I once suggested to an alumni association official that the university host free parties for recent graduates and have a concerned donor hand out $20's at the d

I once suggested to an alumni association official that the university host free parties for recent graduates and have a concerned donor hand out $20's at the door with the request that a donation be made inside. The bump in rankings would lead to more cash coming into the university and have a multiplier effect on the cash dispensed. I wonder what the definition of "donation" is -- Could a rich alumnus send $20 bills in late December, each in a separate envelope with the names of an alumnus who had not yet given that year? I suppose the binary nature of this statistic was chosen to avoid bias toward schools that pump out investment bankers over those who produce <insert lowly paid profession here>. Obviously, all these numbers can be gamed, and we know this from reading Joel's articles on measuring programmers. However, I wonder if universities might be rational in gaming the system, even to an extent much greater than Clemson. Five years from now, few will recall the talk featured in the article, but the positive feedback loop initiated by such a strong bump in the rankings might continue for decades. Why not take the short term ethical hit? Years ago, my alma mater gave up on application fees, supposedly for socioeconomic justice. The reality, I suspect, is that they wanted to encourage more applicants so that they could lower their acceptance rates. The trick is to make sure that the additional applicants are complete losers that are easy to turn down and not Stanford applicants adding a safety school to the list. Why not go a step further and offer free iPods for applying? A couple of years ago one university offered cash (bookstore gift cards) to already accepted students if they retook their SATs and obtained higher scores, so there's a precedent here.