

Claremont McKenna College is under fire for exaggerating the collective SAT exam scores of incoming freshman classes for the last six years, boosting statistics used for national school rankings.

A senior official in the school's admissions office has taken responsibility and resigned, according to an announcement Monday by the school president.

"As an institution of higher education with a deep and consistent commitment to the integrity of all our academic activities, and particularly our reporting of institutional data, we take this situation very seriously," President Pamela B. Gann wrote in a memo distributed at the prestigious liberal arts college, which enrolls about 1,321 students.

The school, in Claremont, refused to identify the official who resigned.