<p>very interesting. I wonder which other universities also manipulate and improve their data?</p>
<p>UIUC is sort of at the top of the list when it comes to ethically questionable practices. There was a huge scandal there a couple of years ago about improper political influence in admissions. The chancellor and president resigned over it, most of the trustees were replaced, and the university says that now it’s squeaky clean - but they have continued to deny the Trib’s request for information on the students who got in through the back door, and the paper is now in court trying to compel them to release it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I believe that many will provide the data in the most positive ways at times when the data are still incomplete. When the “real data” become available, there is little incentive to disclose them fully. Obfuscating summer melts, waitlisted enrollements, or incomplete applications is not really manipulative. Just creative! </p>
<p>Other schools take full advantage of loopholes by not reporting Spring or Winter admits (read Cal and Middlebury.) Again, just exploiting ill-defined reporting elements is only misleading and not a manipulative. Then, you have schools that report numbers that are simply … fantastic, and in all its meanings. Columbia would be the poster child for suck “fibs” as reporting close to 100 percent of enrolled students in the top 10 percent. Of course, they meant the one they cared to count! </p>
<p>The outright manipulations are probably isolated events, as it is impossible to show continuing growth and selectivity.</p>
<p>Villanova Law was caught a few years ago. Also Iona College general false data reporting.</p>
<p>Said it before, I’ll say it again. Law schools should be truthful. But I don’t believe that many admitted students actually read/pay attention to/base decisions on these numbers. There’s a huge amount of wishful thinking that goes on among law school applicants. The actual harm from the fraud, if there was a fraud, is a lot lower than you might think.</p>
<p>U.S. News and World Report is to Post Secondary Educational Institutions</p>
<p>As</p>
<p>No Child Left Behind is to K-12</p>
<p>Whole lotta false data goin’ round.</p>
<p>
I’m sure they do. Most of them pay a lot of attention to the USNWR ranking of the law schools and most try to get into the highest ranked one they can. These numbers affect the USNWR rankings I believe in which case a lot of students were probably duped.</p>
<p>Seems to me more heads should roll here than just the dean of admissions, who is basically just a high-level staff employee. Hard to believe this could occur without the complicity of the dean of the law school. Or if it did, it pretty conclusively shows the dean’s incompetence.</p>
<p>I second what GladGradDad said. It depends on how large the difference was and how much the difference had affected the rankings. In general, the class profile also affects recruiting as employers use that to guage talent. Now that the damage is done, some employers may be so disgusted that they may drop U of I from their list.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The current dean may have an alibi, since he’s fairly new; the previous dean was canned as part of the cleanup after UIUC’s LAST scandal.</p>
<p>“In general, the class profile also affects recruiting as employers use that to guage talent. Now that the damage is done, some employers may be so disgusted that they may drop U of I from their list.”</p>
<p>Most of the students at UIUC did not get through the back door, I do not think employers would ever take into consideration the antics of the administrators over the caliber of the training the students receive at a college. I do not think that Penn State students will now not get jobs. </p>
<p>S just went through the whole job fair process at UIUC - there was no shortage of companies eagerly recruiting UIUC students - he and all of his friends were ‘snapped’ up by top tech companies - why? These companies know that these students are highly trained and prepared, not their fault they live in an ethically challenged state!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know where you get off dissing the state of Blagojevich, Ryan, Walker, Kerner …</p>
<p>“I’m sure they do.”</p>
<p>What makes you sure? Do you work with law school applicants?</p>
<p>I agree that students look at USNWR, but there has been no allegation thus far that U of I’s ranking was affected – just the data it published about itself. If that changes in the future, then I agree it might have indirectly influenced applicants. But the numbers on the web site…I WISH more applicants paid attention to the fine print, but in my experience working with them, only a few will do that.</p>
<p>This is the most blatant case, but there are sooooo many gray areas (of varying questionability) to making data appear more favorable, there is gigantic incentive (direct, personal career incentives to Deans who can their schools up in the rankings), move up in the rankings of the school they oversee), and there is almost no oversight. </p>
<p>Can I prove it? No. But the better question in my mind is why would a proportion of administrators NOT do this? Why would they be immune to the temptations you see happening in every other industry?</p>
<p>
I’m simply saying that I think most law students DO pay attention to the law school rankings in considering which ones to apply to and to accept an admission offer from and these particular stats DO affect the law school rankings. Do you think most law school applicants don’t pay attention to law school rankings in their application and acceptance process? </p>
<p>
But the two are tied in this case. The administrator was fudging with the stats that reflect the caliber of the incoming students. Why wouldn’t employers take this into consideration? I think they generally do which is why grads from the top 20 or so law schools are likely more employable than grads of the bottom 20 law schools. btw - this article is referring only to the law school - not the rest of the uni.</p>
<p>SimpleRules,</p>
<p>I was talking about the law school, not UIUC undergrad or engineering school.</p>
<p>This may be a classic case of poor internal control. This guy should never be granted access to enter/edit any of the data. His performance evaluation is tied to the data and he has every incentive to fudge the numbers. If accessing, entering, or editing these data is part of his job, UIUC was just asking for trouble. If not, anyone who is responsible for data input and maintenance should be able to see he edited the data. But then why didn’t anyone notice anything? Of course, if there’s collusion, even a strong internal control may not prevent this. </p>
<p>So did UIUC have poor IC in this case? Or perhaps this is an act of more than one person…</p>
<p>I just answered my own question with the following:
</p>
<p>Simply unbelieveable! Pathetic!</p>