Leaked Paper Puts Spotlight on MBA Exam Cheating: MBA News

A leaked paper at the Sinhgad Institute of Management at the University of Pune has once again put the issue of cheating in MBA exams in the spotlight.  

Sinhgad Institute of Management student Prasad Waikar discovered that the questions in the exam for the Management Information System (MIS) MBA program were identical to a paper that was released on WhatsApp earlier that day. “I received the question paper on my cell phone around 1:30am on Saturday, but I ignored it thinking it to be some prank or mischief,” he told Daily News and Analysis. A formal complaint to the police was lodged by varsity registrar Narendra Kadu on Monday.

Cheating has long been an issue in Indian business education, with the problem starting much earlier in the scholastic cycle than MBA exams. High rates of cheating in 2012 led to the administering body of the CAT MBA admissions exam releasing a statement: “Acting on the basis of a complaint, a comparison of [published] CAT 2012 scores… with master database of the scores… shows that scores of eighty examinees have been tampered/altered, resulting in inflation of scores for these examinees. The rest of the examinees’ scores… were found to be intact and matching with the master database."

Over 200 institutions, not including Sinhgad Institute of Management, in India use CAT scores as part of their MBA admissions process.

Cheating on MBA exams a global problem

With huge pressure to score highly on exams, it is thought that the issue of cheating in high-stakes examinations in India is endemic as well as understandable. But evidence suggests that the issue of cheating on MBA exams and MBA admissions extends beyond India and Sinhgad Institute of Management. A high-profile case of cheating at the Harbin Institute of Science and Technology in China led to spate of arrests in February 2014, for example.

In the West, cheating on MBA exams is also an old problem.  A study on academic dishonesty in business graduate programs which drew on a pool of 5,000 students at 32 US and Canadian colleges and universities between 2002 and 2004 reveals that the rate of cheating was 9% higher among those studying an MBA program at business school than any other graduate program. A follow-up study is currently in the works, which is expected to show a further increase.

Professor Donald McCabe of Rutgers University is leading the study. “Some say cheating has gone down slightly. Don’t believe it. Students are doing it more but they don’t consider it cheating. You don’t have to look that hard to find cheating,” he told The Globe and Mail.

As in India, it is thought that the competitive nature of business culture is one of the main factors driving cheating on MBA exams and beyond: “It’s the bottom line that matters. It’s not how you get there…. get it done at all costs”.

A recent high-profile example that illustrates this well is that of Mathew Martoma, who neglected to mention he had been previously expelled from Harvard Business School when applying to Stanford GSB, at which he completed his MBA. His cheating certainly didn’t stop there though, with his career of insider trading certainly standing as the epitome of success at any cost. His MBA has been unsurprisingly rescinded.