P&Q’s Must Reads: What Francesca Gino’s Harvard Lawsuit Says About Data Colada’s Fraud Allegations

Hello everyone  — Welcome back to Poets&Quants’ Must Reads, a quick, digestible recap of the top business school news, sponsored by CentreCourt, P&Q’s virtual admission events.

I’m your host, Kristy Bleizeffer, and I’ll be highlighting the most important P&Q stories you might have missed. So, let’s get to it. 

No. 1: What Francesca Gino’s Harvard Lawsuit Says About Data Colada’s Fraud Allegations

Harvard Business School superstar behavioral scientist Francesca Gino is suing Harvard University, the HBS dean, and the three authors of Data Colada for $25 million. She announced the lawsuit last week after the prominent data blog covering prominent academic research outlined a series of data anomalies in four of her widely published studies. At least three of the papers are in the process of being retracted.

While the fraud allegations against Gino have attracted widespread media attention, she herself has been mum save for two LinkedIn posts. The lawsuit is her first response to Data Colada’s findings, and to many academics, her response appears to be lacking. 

In this story, we take a closer look at Gino’s response to the blog’s allegations and academia’s response to them. You can find it on our homepage.

No. 2: Another Major Consulting Firm Delays Start Dates For Its MBA Hires 

One of the top global consulting firms has deferred start dates for its new MBA hires and others, in some cases until spring of 2024.

Many of the MBAs hired by Deloitte, one of the world’s biggest accounting and financial advisory firms, have been informed that their onboarding with the company will be delayed until January or February 2024, or in some cases later in the spring. This comes after some start dates were already pushed back from July to August.

Deloitte, which employs more than 100,000 globally, joins the MBB firms — McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain — in delaying new hire start dates this year.

You can get the latest in this ongoing story from our trending tab.

No. 3 She Got Into 4 Of The Top 5 U.S. MBA Programs — While Planning Her Own Wedding 

Estefania Escamilla is headed to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School this fall. But the native of Mexico also applied – and got in – to  four of the most elite MBA programs in the world — Stanford Graduate School of Business, Harvard Business School, Wharton, and Chicago Booth School of Business.

And she did it while working full-time as an investment banker and planning her wedding and honeymoon.

“Business school will be a rest for me after this!” she tells Poets&Quants. 

You can read all about her journey from our homepage.

No. 4: Our Weekly Round Up of  News You Can Use

No matter where you are in your MBA journey, we bring several helpful stories for you this week.

First up: Wharton MBA Class Of 2025: Apps Fall Again, But Reaches Parity For A 3rd Straight Year. This story is the first class profile to be released this year, and it gives an in-depth look at the makeup of Wharton’s 2025 MBA class. You can find it, and other class profiles as they are released, in our news tab. 

Next: GMAT Versus GRE: Which Top-50 MBA Programs Prefer Which Test? This story, on our homepage, can help you decide which test to focus on for your dream school.

Finally: How To Answer The Most Common MBA Interview Questions: For this story, in our admissions tab, Simplilearn rounded up some of the most frequently asked MBA interview questions and how candidates should respond.

And, that’s it for this week’s Must Reads recap. 

I also want to alert school seekers to Centre Court’s upcoming MBA Festival. You’ll hear from alumni and career experts from leading business schools about how the MBA can fast-track your career. Our next event is Oct. 3-4, and you can register now for free.

Again, I’m Kristy Bleizeffer, and you can join me next week, right here, for a recap of what’s important in the world of business education. Thanks for listening and, as always, stay informed!