The admissions office at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is once again under investigation after erroneous admissions data for the school’s College of Law was reported last month.
While it was revealed Aug. 26 that inaccurate LSAT scores and GPAs were reported on the university’s website for students admitted into the law school for the class of 2014, officials announced Wednesday misinformation was also published and submitted to the American Bar Association and the US News & World Report ranking group for four of the last 10 years.
Since the Aug. 26 complaint filed with the university’s ethics office, the administration launched a probe into the last decade of College of Law test scores and grade point averages, a statement from the university said.
“The findings indicate inaccurate data were entered that improved the Law School Admissions Test and GPA information describing the enrolled classes of 2011 through 2014,” the statement said.
The statement also said the investigation is ongoing and is looking into figuring out where the discrepancies came from and how they can be prevented in the future.
U of I spokesperson Tom Hardy said the school was disappointed by the “unfortunate circumstances” and was unsure of whether the numbers presented affected the number or type of applicants that applied to the school.
“There’s no way of being able to ascertain whether it brought more students to apply,” Hardy said. “It’s important for us to have integrity in the information we put out, and it’s no small matter that this has taken place.”
Hardy said it was important to note the differences presented were not significant.
According to the statement, LSAT scores varied anywhere from 1 to 5 points between the actual and reported figures. GPA statistics were within a .2 margin from the actual numbers.
Still, Hardy said it was possible the variations were large enough to offset where the College of Law should have been ranked in national standings and within the Big Ten.
US News & World Report data research director Robert Morse said Illinois’ mistake should serve as an example to other universities and has created an embarrassment to the university.
“That you have to admit publicly that you did this is embarrassing to the school and hopefully will have a dampening effect on others that do this,” Hardy told the Associated Press.
Morse said the skewed figures are among the items considered in the national rankings the group presents each year.
Illinois ranks 23rd on the group’s list of law schools and places 5th among universities affiliated with the Big Ten. The University of Wisconsin is ranked 35th on the overall group and 8th in the Big Ten.
Hardy said while many students might use the admitted class profile in determining where to apply to school and eventually where to attend, he said it was still important to recognize students also use a variety of other values as criteria.
The university self-reported the error to ABA and to US News & World Report, Hardy said.
“We reported the incident in August when this came to the university’s attention, and we have kept them informed of developments in the course of our inquiry and will produce a full report when the investigation wraps up,” Hardy said.
The staff member who currently serves as the assistant dean of the law school for admissions is currently on dated administrative leave, Hardy said. He could not confirm whether the leave was in relation to the investigation.
– The Associated Press Contributed to this report.
