George Washington U. Inflated Class-Rank Data for More Than a Decade

George Washington University’s admissions office misreported data on the class rank of incoming students for more than a decade, the institution announced on Thursday. The errors, as described by university officials, resulted from a combination of good data and faulty “estimates.” Previously, George Washington reported—on its Web site and to U.S. News & World Report—that 78 percent of the members of last fall’s freshman class had graduated in the top 10 percent of their high-school class. The correct figure, university officials said on Thursday, was 58 percent.