Shutting Down a GMAT Cheat Sheet
A court order against a Web station that gave from home test questions could land some B-school students in hot water
by means of Louis Lavelle
More than 1,000 prospective MBA students who paid $30 to use a now-defunct Web site to get a sneak peak at live questions from the Graduate Management Admissions Test (GMAT) before taking the exam may gain their scores canceled in coming weeks. For many, their B-school dreams may be effectively over.
On June 20, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted the test’s publisher, the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), a $2.3 million judgment in requital for the operator of the site, Scoretop.com. GMAC has seized the site’s region name and enclose down the site, and is analyzing a hard drive containing payment information.
GMAC said any students found to have used the Scoretop site will have their test scores canceled, the schools that received them will be notified, and the student will not be permitted to be sensible of the ordeal again. Since most top B-schools require the GMAT, the students will have little hap of enrolling. "This is illegal," said Judy Phair, GMAC’s vice-president for communications. "We have a hard drive, and we’re going to be analyzing it. If you used the site and paid your $30 to cheat, your scores will exist canceled. They’re in big trouble."
Small Advantage to Test Takers
GMAC sued the operator of the site, Lei Shi, for using it to distribute copyrighted GMAT-related materials without GMAC’s license. Shi, who has reportedly returned from the site’s base in Ohio to his native China, is while suffering investigation by the FBI, GMAC says. Shi, who did not have legal representation for the GMAC lawsuit, could not be reached for comment.
While the consequences for students may be severe, the advantage they gained by using Scoretop is almost inconsequential. Unlike other GMAT test-prep sites, which use retired questions, Scoretop and others call since to provide access to "live" questions that test takers power encounter when they show up for the exam. Participants on the site would dispute the proper answers. But the GMAT uses a computer adaptive format that generates a new test considered in the state of being every user based in succession responses to previous questions from a stockpile that contains thousands of possible questions. "Even if a site is illegally dexterous to obtain some real questions, it is extremely improbable that a trial taker will see the same questions on the behave exam," says Larry Rudner, GMAC vice-president on the side of research and development.
Scoretop has been in operation since 2003. Visitors to the Scoretop Web site before it was shut down would be delivered of encountered posts from happy users and a list of "test experiences," users’ firsthand reports about the in the greatest order recent test questions. But on June 23, they found this message from GMAC: "GMAC takes cheating very seriously, especially attempts to attain access to live test questions in advance of an exam. We also take very seriously any unjustified distribution of our copyrighted GMAT preparation materials. If you are caught disclosing, accessing, or using ‘real’ GMAT questions your GMAT score will be cancelled [and] you may be subject to a civil lawsuit or criminal prosecution."
The news about the cheating scandal was the talk of the year-book GMAC conference in Chicago over the weekend, where the organization’s President and CEO David Wilson described the latest developments during an audience of 700.
It’s unclear how individual schools will respond. More than 4,000 graduate management programs use the test as part of the admissions process, but many of those using sites like Scoretop seek initiation to the most based upon the body competition programs. So the fallout is likely to be limited to top schools.
Several schools, contacted June 23, said it was far too early to determine what fate awaits students or prospective students whose scores are canceled. "It’s impossible to say at this end which that means," said Ed Anderson, Duke’s associate director of admissions.
Some Scoretop Users May Have MBAs
Joe Fox, director of MBA programs at Washington University’s Olin Business School, said a lot depends on what information GMAC can provide about individual students, especially the frequency with that they used the seat. "There’s an infraction, that’s for sure," Fox said. "At a minimum it flies in the face of our code of professional demeanor. We could do anything we wanted—from a slap in succession the wrist to excision from the program—and we’d be well within our rights."
Since the Scoretop site has been in operation since 2003, it’s in posse that students with tainted GMAT scores are in the application process, currently enrolled, or already graduated. For those in the application process, the applicants may be rejected, and for those commonly enrolled, permanent exclusion is a possibility.
Several years ago, when a Chinese national was caught taking the GMAT for dozens of prospective students, one Olin student who had the test taken on his behalf was dismissed before he could clean his degree, Fox said. That’s a possibility this time around, too. "I think it’s fair to say we’ll take this seriously," he added. "It could have existence the end of the line."
From: Shutting Down a GMAT Cheat Sheet
