Who Cooked The Books At Tulane?

Tulane University’s Freeman School of Business yesterday (Jan. 16) admitted that it falsely inflated its average GMAT scores by an astounding 35 points for five consecutive years from 2007 to 2011. The school also conceded that it had falsely increased the number of completed applications it received by an average of 116 applications over the same time period.

The false reports went to U.S. News & World Report so that Freeman would be ranked more highly by the magazine’s annual lists of the best full-time MBA programs in the U.S. The disclosures were made as a result of an investigation by the law firm of Jones Day, which had been called in last month to do the probe by Tulane University’s Office of General Counsel.

The impact of the fraud is not yet clear. But from 2010 to 2012, Tulane’s Freeman School increased its ranking by 10 full places to 43^rd last year from 53^rd in 2010. Among other things, the school’s current position in U.S. News’ ranking was based on an apparently inflated average GMAT of its enrolled MBA class of 670 and a lower-than-actual acceptance rate of 56.7% Average GMAT scores loom large in the U.S. News’ methodology for calculating its MBA rankings, with a total weight of 16.25%. A school’s acceptance rate, which would be lower based on an inflated number of total applications, receives less weight, only 1.25%.

A MAJOR BLOW IN REPUTATION TO THE FREEMAN SCHOOL’S MBA PROGRAM

The disclosures are a major blow to the reputation of the Freeman School, which has a relatively small full-time MBA program with an enrollment of just 170 students. “To me, this is not an issue about rankings, but about reputation,” said Freeman Dean Ira Solomon, in a statement. “It is about the integrity of the business school and those who work in it.” U.S. News had earlier said it would study Tulane’s final report with the correct data before any determination can accurately be made of what, if any, impact this will have on the Freeman School’s ranking.

In a statement, the school said that “the timeline and data reported suggest a single business school employee falsified data and submitted it to U.S. News & World Report. The individual is no longer at the school.” The school declined to name the official who falsely reported the information. “As a matter of university policy, actions involving personnel are not discussed publicly,” Freeman said.

DIRECTOR OF ADMISSIONS BILL SANDEFER LEFT THE SCHOOL LAST YEAR

The school’s director of admissions for the five-year period for which false data was reported had been Bill Sandefer, who left the school in 2012 to become the senior director of graduate admissions at UC-Davis’ Graduate School of Management. Sandefer served as director of admissions at the Freeman School for 15 years before joining UC-Davis last summer. While at Tulane, Sandefer oversaw recruiting and admissions for Tulane’s six graduate management programs, including the full-time MBA, part-time MBA and masters programs.

According to a news release announcing his appointment at UC-Davis, Sandefer has been “very active and visible in the graduate management education industry, serving in key roles with the Diversity MBA Advisory Board, the Graduate Management Admissions Council, the National Association of Foreign Student Advisors, and the Council on the Advancement and Support of Education Conference.” Sandefer could not be reached for comment.

Average and median GMAT scores are among the most important criteria tracked by an admissions office because they represent the single best data point to determine the quality of an enrolled class. Unlike grade point averages which can differ significantly in some countries, GMAT scores are comparable across the world. So it is highly unlikely that a person holding the position of admissions director would not be aware of fraudulent reporting.

GMAT and other admissions data are usually handed over to a communications official at a school who would then turn them into U.S. News & World Report. Even if the numbers were not inflated in the admissions office, it would be unusual for the director of admissions to not notice the discrepancy once they were published by U.S. News–especially over five consecutive years. A 35-point difference, moreover, would have brought the school’s reported GMAT score down to 635 from 670 last year, a fairly significant change. ‘

YOU EITHER DON’T KNOW AND SHOULD OR THERE IS SOMETHING FUNNY GOING ON’

“You either don’t know and should, or you know and there is something funny going on,” said an admissions director of another top business school when asked for comment on the situation. The fraud was discovered shortly after Sandefer left Freeman in the fall of 2012, as the school prepared to submit data to external audiences relating to its full-time 2012 MBA program. “Discrepancies were found between accurate data being reported for the current year and data reported for the previous year,” the school said in the statement. As the school’s standards and admission criteria had not changed, Dean Ira Solomon raised a concern with the Office of the Provost.”