Top 10 Scandals & Controversies of 2015

The GMAT Prep Crunch

Well, $25 doesn’t seem like so much, when you’re preparing to spend up to a couple hundred thousand dollars on an MBA. But should the Graduate Management Admission Council charge extra for “enhanced” GMAT results? It appears there’s some value in the enhancements – the service provides a more detailed picture of a test-taker’s performance, breaking it down by subsections, highlighting strengths and weaknesses, and noting average response time. However, would-be MBAs already pay $250 a pop to take the exam, and GMAC’s gross profit margins are better than the margins Apple makes on either an iPad or an iPhone.

7. Wharton Student Calls Out Peers Over Racism

Outside the Wharton School on the University of Pennsylvania campus – Ethan Baron photo

Former LPGA pro golfer and Wharton MBA student Jeehae Lee was fed up. So she went public with her anger over what she called the widespread acceptance of race-based humor at Wharton. She called the school’s Latin American Student Association onto the carpet for requesting nominations for the “master at banging Asians” award. She also singled out, in her article in The Wharton Journal, a second-years’ meet-up email that expressed hope that “all Asians” returned alive from a Chinese New Year party because “we know drinking doesn’t come as naturally as stats.” Five months earlier, another Wharton student had publicly complained that Wharton was riven by race-based cliques.

6. A Cheating Scandal Erupts At The Kellogg School Of Management

Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management

Allegations of cheating in the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management highlighted unfortunate deficiencies in the school’s process for handling honor code investigations. A number of master’s in management studies students alleged to Poets&Quants that six students were seen cheating in two final exams, and that the school had assigned a biased student to lead the honor code investigation. The school refused to confirm whether they were conducting an investigation, leaving the students who complained angry and frustrated. According to school protocols, results of any investigation would only be reported long after they finished their program – and after any cheaters had already been hired.

5. Rawls Dean Changed MBAs’ Grades, Resigns

Rawls College Dean Lance Nail

Texas Tech Rawls School’s former dean Lance Nail is unrepentant. But he still resigned from the deanship after a probe concluded he’d changed MBA students’ grades to allow them to graduate. A faculty panel had determined Nail had made an end run around the school’s policies for changing grades, improving marks for four students. The professor who taught the course for which the grades were changed was moved – he says at Nail’s behest – to the math and statistics department after he made an issue of the grade changes. Nail admits he didn’t follow the rules “to the letter,” but contends this was “an extraordinary case” and he had to act so “deserving students” would be able to graduate.