Are 1 in 5 college women raped? In this article, it is claimed that 1 in 5 college women are raped (at least around the 2013-2014 time period). I have heard the claim repeated from other sources (such as the BBC, which was apparently quoting a White House figure), so to say the least this appears to be a common statistic. However, I am doubtful about this statistic, as per this question, comments in Freakonomics about how such figures might be exaagerated (intentionally or not) by organizations campaigning against sexual assault, and to a degree, personal experience. Where are such statistics actually derived from, and are they actually accurate?

The claim in the linked article does not represent the full range of estimates for the prevalence of rape or sexual assault. The evidence is based on surveys that depend on self-reporting and with results that vary based on the specific question asked. The accuracy of the surveys is unknown, since there is no ground-truth data against which to evaluate.

Wikipedia's summary regarding prevalence is:

> Estimates vary greatly as to the number of women who experience a sexual assault during college, with surveys focused on the United States placing it as low as 1 in 50 (2%) to as high as 1 in 4 (25%).

Referencing

* Louis Harris and Associates (1994). The Commonwealth Fund Survey of Women's Health. Jacobs Institute of Women's Healthh. p. 20.) and
* Koss, Mary (1988). "Hidden Rape: Sexual Aggression and Victimization in a National Sample of Students in Higher Education". Rape and Sexual Assault (Garland Publishing) 2: 8.).