U of Ill.: Program Designed to Obscure Low Grades

The University of Illinois' investigation of grade and admissions-score inflation at its law school found that the official now blamed for the problem created an early entrance program designed to keep low test scores out of class profiles used in national rankings.

The Chicago Tribune reports Wednesday that former admissions dean Paul Pless wrote in a 2008 e-mail that that the program would allow the school to bring in law students with high grades from undergraduate work without having any potentially low entrance-exam scores hurt the college.

The newspaper says Pless set up "iLEAP," a program for U of I juniors who commit to the College of Law upon graduation. Students coming to the law school through iLEAP are not required to take the Law School Admission Test, or LSAT.

Pless resigned last week.

The university began investigating after receiving complaints and finding inaccurate data posted online for the class of 2014. The university found inaccurate data was posted for four classes.