Temple’s Fox School of Business’s online MBA program has lost it’s nationwide #1 ranking. The business school significantly overstated the number of new entrants for its 2016-2017 entering class who submitted GMAT scores. The incorrect data resulted in the school’s rank being higher than it otherwise would have been in the Best Online MBA Programs rankings. This comes just days after the program was ranked #1 in the country for the fourth year in a row. Dean M. Moshe Porat issued an apology to U.S. News and World Report, and Temple University stating:
Yesterday, U.S. News & World Report revised its rankings of the 2018 Best Online Programs, from which the Fox Online MBA has been removed as the nation’s No. 1-ranked program as a result of unintentionally misreported data. On the day the rankings were announced, we recognized an error in the data that we had submitted to U.S. News & World Report. We acted immediately to contact U.S. News & World Report to make the publication aware of the error.
This error has moved the Fox Online MBA program to U.S. News & World Report’s unranked category for its 2018 rankings.
Once we discovered the error, we took the proactive approach to promptly self-report in order to correct a mistake. The data submitted overstated the number of incoming Fox Online MBA students who had provided GMAT and GRE scores as part of the enrollment process. It was our hope U.S. News & World Report would recalculate its rankings based upon the submission of revised data. However, we accept the U.S. News & World Report decision.
The Fox Online MBA program still embodies all of the qualities of the nation’s top program, regardless of the revised 2018 ranking. Our program has a long-standing reputation as one of the nation’s best online MBA programs.
We are doubling efforts to verify our data before it is submitted for rankings purposes, and we have every expectation that the Fox Online MBA program will return to its rightful place among the nation’s top programs of its kind in 2019 and beyond. Rankings are a byproduct of quality, and our focus will remain where it always has—on delivering high-quality programs and service to our students.
To ensure the integrity of the Fox School’s reported data and reporting, the University is hiring an outside, independent firm to review all of our school’s data reporting processes, including what happened in this instance, and to make appropriate recommendations. I have directed the entire Fox School to cooperate fully with this review.
Fox’s MBA program will remain in the “Unranked” category until 2019.
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