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"Any love-hate relationship must have its share of pain, so the academic world, in its obsession with college rankings, is suitably dismayed by news that an elite college, Claremont McKenna, fudged its numbers in an apparent bid to climb the charts. Claremont McKenna in California is the latest but not the only college to have admitted submitting false information in an effort to win a high rating. Dismayed, but not quite surprised. In fact, several colleges in recent years have been caught gaming the system - in particular, the avidly watched U.S. News & World Report rankings - by twisting the meanings of rules, cherry-picking data or just lying. In one recent example, Iona College in New Rochelle, north of New York City, acknowledged last fall that its employees had lied for years not only about test scores, but also about graduation rates, freshman retention, student-faculty ratio, acceptance rates and alumni giving. Other institutions have found ways to manipulate the data without outright dishonesty. In 2008, Baylor University offered financial rewards to admitted students to retake the SAT in hopes of increasing its average score. Admissions directors say that some colleges delay admission of low-scoring students until January, excluding them from averages for the class admitted in September, while other colleges seek more applications to report a lower percentage of students accepted. Claremont McKenna, according to Robert Morse, the director of data research at U.S. News, is "the highest-ranking school to have to go through this publicly and have to admit to misreporting." This year, U.S. News rated it as the nation's ninth-best liberal arts college. There is no reason to think the U.S. News rankings are rife with misinformation, and the publication makes efforts to police the data, adjust its metrics and close loopholes. But repeated revelations of manipulation show the importance of the rankings in the minds of prospective students, thei

"Like salesmen making the rounds, admissions officers from selective colleges spend much of October on the road, pitching their wares to high school students and hoping they'll buy, or at least apply. It's a transaction that, at this point in the process, is a win-win: students get to learn first-hand about universities that may, or may not, be on their radar, and to meet someone who may review their application; the deans get a chance to tell their school's story and to search for that diamond in the rough, a student who might really contribute to the college community. "

Parenting sites indicate many New York City parents want caregivers to teach their children a language.

Some interesting questions as to whether parents can "know" it's a good thing or a bad thing to have their children learn a second language. There are clearly cognitive and social costs and benefits that must be weighed.

"Are there certain hobbies, passions or accomplishments you've excluded from your college application, feeling they're not worthy or relevant?"

"Will you have a better life if you graduate from an elite school? Students and their parents think the answer is yes, and competition for slots at top-ranked (and costly) schools seems higher than ever. Having a big name college on your resume can impress employers, friends and the opposite sex. The Times columnist Gail Collins says this national fixation makes little sense. "We can do a great service to the youth and parents of America by telling them to stop obsessing about choosing a college," she wrote recently in The Conversation blog. "Kids, you do not need to go to a school with a name that impresses your friends. Go to a school you can afford." If enough people took her advice, the spell might be broken. In the meantime, what should sensible and ambitious students keep in mind about where they go to school?"

"It isn't often that a third of a movie audience sticks around to discuss its message, but that is the effect of "Race to Nowhere," a look at the downside of childhoods spent on résumé-building. " "How do you help your children balance when the whole education system is pushing, pushing, pushing, and you want your kids to be successful?" Alethea Lewis, a mother of two, asked a roomful of concerned parents who had just seen the film, a documentary, last week in Bronxville, N.Y., at a screening co-sponsored by the private Chapel School. With no advertising and little news media attention, "Race to Nowhere" has become a must-see movie in communities where the kindergarten-to-Harvard steeplechase is most competitive.

"AS hundreds of thousands of students rush to fill out college applications to meet end-of-the-year deadlines, it might be worth asking them: Is where you spend the next four years of your life that important? Harvard can give you advantages, but not everything. The sluggish economy and rising costs of college have only intensified questions about whether expensive, prestigious colleges make any difference. Do their graduates make more money? Get into better professional programs? Make better connections? And are they more satisfied with their lives, or at least with their work?"