U. of Illinois Law suspends Dean of Admissions Forum

[JCougar]

I wonder if some poor Jones Day associate billed time for reading any of the utter dreck I post on here.

For a 160k, I'd happily read every post GDane ever wrote.

Shit for 160 I'd read every poast by Sehmeserial, GDane, PDaddy, and URMDan.

Good to see I'm not on your list yet.

[NiccoloA]

From page 35:


"I would want a 3.5 in engineering from here [more] than a 3.9 in theater design
from the Southeast Dakota State School of Air Conditioner Repair"


FUCK

YOU

BUDDY

Wow. What a dick.

[Helmholtz]

I also have a question about your iLEAP program. Programs of this sort (including at my law school) have been highly criticized at other schools as a means of 'gaming the system' by admitting high GPA students who in all likelihood would not ALL have high LSAT scores. The criticism of these programs as I understand it is that you satisfy your requirement as a state school of admitting local students while not making the LSAT sacrifice that would normally be made (not all the schools with similar programs are state schools). IF as you have said earlier that the LSAT is a good indicator of law school success, why exempt these students from taking this valuable test? I understand that U of I is a good school, but even you have to admit that the additional information that the LSAT would give you would be useful, and that your other evaluation methods don't seem to really take the place of what the LSAT does.

iLEAP is designed to keep the best Illinois students here for their legal education. We want to allow these people to apply early, with enough time so if they are denied admission or choose not to accept our offer, they can apply in the normal fashion (both to Illinois and other schools). This means we have to give them a decision before the deadline to sign up for the June LSAT before their senior year. If the student has taken the LSAT already, we will consider it. We don't prohibit them from taking the LSAT, we just don't require it. We simply don't want to force people to take it early.

We only offer this to Illinois (Champaign) students because we know what their grades mean more than any other school. We have a lot of data both on the applicants from Illinois and on those that matriculate. The iLEAP application is also more extensive than our normal application. All of these factors, in addition to the interview, will allow us to successfully select excellent law students from the iLEAP pool. We use the interview for iLEAP because all of these students are all on our campus and can all easily be interviewed. An interview can be useful in determining an applicant's maturity and motivation. It will also allow me to push people a little bit and see how well the think on their feet, an important trait for an attorney.

As for the gaming allegation. My job is to bring the best people to Illinois. iLEAP will help me do that.

...................

Pless was instrumental in the development and implementation of iLEAP. In an October 28, 2008 email, Pless was asked by an acquaintance: “U of I doesn’t require LSATs anymore? Really?” App. 24. Pless’s response described one of the key objectives of iLEAP—securing the enrollment of students with high undergraduate GPAs and the resulting benefit from a USNWR ranking perspective:

This is old news. I am a maverick and a reformer so I started a new program for U of I undergrads to apply in their junior year and we don’t require the LSAT. We have additional essays and an interview instead. That way, I can trap about 20 of the little bastards with high GPA’s that count and no LSAT score to count against my median. It is quite ingenious. And I thought of it before Michigan, they just released it earlier. I was hoping to fly under the radar.

The strategic aspect of iLEAP was not lost on Pless’s acquaintance, nor was Pless’s ingenuity: “That is clever. Jack up the GPA without risking the low LSAT (so long as their GPAs don’t crash after they’re accepted—you might want to keep the offer GPA-conditional in some way). But nice gaming the system; I’m so proud.” Pless replied: “That will be a condition. Plus, if I don’t make them give me their final transcript until after they start, I report the GPA that was on their application.”18 To this, the acquaintance remarked: “nice.”

lololololololol

[minnbills]

Man did this guy lie through his teeth...

[Bildungsroman]

Wow. Changed LSATs for 109 and changed GPAs for 58. Did he really not think he'd get caught?

[CanadianWolf]

In response to minnbills: If so, I'd like to know why.

[Grizz]

lololololololol

We all know why admissions people do it, just don't like about it next time?

[minnbills]

In response to minnbills: If so, I'd like to know why.

Why did he lie? For his own advancement. Though this type of bullshit wouldn't happen if USNews didn't play as big a role as it does.

[Samara]

In response to minnbills: If so, I'd like to know why.

Why did he lie? For his own advancement and huge raises. Though this type of bullshit wouldn't happen if USNews didn't play as big a role as it does.

FTFY

[Richie Tenenbaum]

Given that we are projecting almost $8 mil in profit (sorry, don’t know what else to call it) over the next 4 years we can probably afford to bump up the scholarship budget a smidge more in FY10-FY12. One of the principals [sic] of this plan to drastically raise tuition was to funnel a lot of that back into scholarships, both to reduce the burden on our students and to increase our spending for US News. [From page 61 of the report]

Told a ton of people this IRL. Increasing tuition has very good effects on a school's US News Ranking: They can try to get high LSAT/GPA people with extra scholarship money and it increases overall spending for US News purposes. Thus, charging more tuition and just sending it back out via scholarships can be another relatively simple way to help boost rankings.

A "funny" side-effect of this tactic? The people who end up doing poorly who are paying sticker get screwed the hardest, since now they are straddled with more debt so the school could try to game the rankings. I mean, it's completely logical for a school to do this because it's in their best interest. But the consequences are very, very shitty for some of the students.

[keg411]

I'm just surprised there wasn't more of a paper trail on this. At my old school, I worked in admissions as part of work-study and everything was paper-based and the other work study students did a lot of the recording work (and in multiple places). I'm just kind of surprised that UIUC could hide something like this for so long from what I saw, but I have no clue what the procedures they used.

[CanadianWolf]

The procedures are detailed in the report.

[CanadianWolf]

When I wrote that I'd like to know why he did it, I understand the obvious. He already had a substantial pay raise. He already had a high profile in a booming industry. I suspect that there is more to the story. What are other admissions & financial aid deans paid ? If his pay was unusually high for a mid-western public law school ranked, then what was expected ?

[Thirteen]

This sucks

[beachbum]

Interesting how the ABA isn't too concerned with schools repeatedly (and egregiously) manipulating employment data, but as soon as someone tampers with admissions data ZOMG WTF.

[PDaddy]

I wonder if some poor Jones Day associate billed time for reading any of the utter dreck I post on here.

For a 160k, I'd happily read every post GDane ever wrote.

Shit for 160 I'd read every poast by Sehmeserial, GDane, PDaddy, and URMDan.

PDaddy writes extremely well and knows what in hell he is talking about.

[Samara]

When I wrote that I'd like to know why he did it, I understand the obvious. He already had a substantial pay raise. He already had a high profile in a booming industry. I suspect that there is more to the story. What are other admissions & financial aid deans paid ? If his pay was unusually high for a mid-western public law school ranked, then what was expected ?

His pay was (I believe) above average by this year. If, after a few successful cycles, his medians turned out to be way below projections, as they were, he would lose the credibility he had built up. It's possible that if it was bad enough, he'd lose his job and his ability to get a comparable job elsewhere. As happy as they were with big jumps in the rankings, they'd probably be equally mad by big losses. My guess is that he thought he could fudge the data for a couple cycles, get another job, and then maybe it would get swept under the rug because he'd already be gone.

[Samara]

Interesting how the ABA isn't too concerned with schools repeatedly (and egregiously) manipulating employment data, but as soon as someone tampers with admissions data ZOMG WTF.

TBF, presenting employment numbers in a certain (arguably misleading) light is quite a bit different from fabricating and altering the numbers. Technically, none of the presented employment data is incorrect.

[MrAnon]

wow Pless really turned this website into his own advertising machine.

[PDaddy]

"I thought of it before Michigan.." - bet they love that association.

Frankly, I think the GPA-only admissions are shady as fuck, whether it's Michigan or UIUC or whoever doing it.

GULC, Texas?

[beachbum]

Interesting how the ABA isn't too concerned with schools repeatedly (and egregiously) manipulating employment data, but as soon as someone tampers with admissions data ZOMG WTF.

TBF, presenting employment numbers in a certain (arguably misleading) light is quite a bit different from fabricating and altering the numbers. Technically, none of the presented employment data is incorrect.

No, but the outcome is similar, if not more severe: while admissions data is a rough proxy for a candidate's chances at admissions, employment data is (or should be) a rough proxy for a student's (/potential student's) chances at getting a worthwhile job, which is the point of attending law school in the first place.

While the employment data isn't incorrect under the current standards, you'd kinda hope the ABA would be more proactive in changing those standards and holding schools accountable after it's become apparent that so many schools are abusing the system. But yeah, Pless blatantly broke the rules, and he should suffer the consequences, even if lesser manipulation occurs all the time.

[PDaddy]

This makes me angry at Pless.

I still feel bad for the guy, even if he is a liar.

Don't! He doesn't belong in our coveted profession.

[Samara]

Interesting how the ABA isn't too concerned with schools repeatedly (and egregiously) manipulating employment data, but as soon as someone tampers with admissions data ZOMG WTF.

TBF, presenting employment numbers in a certain (arguably misleading) light is quite a bit different from fabricating and altering the numbers. Technically, none of the presented employment data is incorrect.

No, but the outcome is similar, if not more severe: while admissions data is a rough proxy for a candidate's chances at admissions, employment data is (or should be) a rough proxy for a student's (/potential student's) chances at getting a worthwhile job, which is the point of attending law school in the first place.

While the employment data isn't incorrect under the current standards, you'd kinda hope the ABA would be more proactive in changing those standards and holding schools accountable after it's become apparent that so many schools are abusing the system. But yeah, Pless blatantly broke the rules, and he should suffer the consequences, even if lesser manipulation occurs all the time.

Yeah, I definitely think the ABA needs to change the rules regarding employment data to make it easier to understand what is really happening with employment. I just think that it's not really fair to be mad at the schools about it. The ABA is giving them rules and the schools are marketing themselves the best they can within those rules. Why should any school be the martyr for "fair" unemployment data? What would it gain them? How badly would it hurt their image in the eyes of prospective students?

[Tanicius]

I... This... Just wow. In fucking credible. You couldn't make up these emails and the level of fraud required to do this. Jesus Christ. I was with bj in still feeling sorry for Pless when I read the initial quotes from this report, but some of the shit he said in emails to professional coworkers... This guy is a massive, massive jerk (and of course a liar).

[NiccoloA]

The way he speaks... Similar attitude to Blagojevich, no?