Duped

So I'm sure you all remember my prideful post yesterday, boasting that Elon was named the prettiest campus in the US. (And I was pretty excited that my family and friends had attended a lot of the other universities on the list.) This isn't the first time Elon has landed on a rankings list. But it was really exciting that Elon was ranked #1. Elon, a small liberal arts school in the middle of NC, in the town of Elon, no less.

Well, it turns out, that list is probably bogus. I know. I'm heartbroken, too. I have to say a few details about the list seemed odd; but I was so proud of Elon that I didn't analyze them too closely. Here are some suspicious aspects.

For one thing, they mentioned Elon was the spot of a botanical garden before the school was built. In actuality, the original site was wooded land surrounded by farms. And it became a registered botanical garden in 2004. Another odd thing, they showed four photos for every school. But for Elon, they duplicated one of the photos. And it was ranked #1. Lastly, the title of the article was "The 50 Most Amazing College Campuses." But the actual website address had "most beautiful campuses" not amazing. And in Elon's write-up, they declared it the prettiest. It's a little strange that an official ranking would be so inconsistent in their wording.

Prof. Megan Squire, who teaches in the Computer Sciences Department at Elon, shed some light on this list. She writes a blog and wrote a post this morning about her impromptu investigation of this ranking and website. Since it was being passed around Facebook like wildfire yesterday, it caught her attention. You can read her blog post here.

Basically, it seems like the list was generated from other rankings and put on this website as a way to make money. I'm pretty sure it did make money. And lots of it. 47 of my friends shared the article on Facebook. I checked today and it was shared from the original site more than 16,000 via Facebook. Someone is cleaning up.

I'm a little bummed though. My small University, which I love so much and am so proud to have attended was finally getting some big recognition. And now it turns out it's a hoax. At least everyone who went to Elon or currently goes there knows it's a beautiful campus. It's still #1 to me.