Feb. 1

Admissions Official and Consultant — at the Same Time

Some in college admissions worry about a “revolving door” ethics
problem in which officials of top colleges leave their positions to set
up or join companies that advise students and families on how to get
into college.

At the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, a senior
admissions official didn’t quit; she set up a consulting business for
applicants while working in admissions at Penn. Judith S. Hodara even
noted her Wharton job title (senior associate director of admissions
for the M.B.A. program) on the Web site of her company, IvyStone
Educational Consultants.

On Thursday, shortly after receiving a voicemail and e-mail from a
reporter about her consulting job, Hodara took down her company’s Web
site. Later Thursday, Penn released a statement: “This matter came to
our attention yesterday and we have since reviewed the situation. In
order to avoid even an appearance of conflict of interest, Ms. Hodara
has resigned from all outside consulting activities.”

Asked if Penn considered the arrangement appropriate, a university
spokeswoman said via e-mail: “Penn does not consider this type of
situation to be appropriate, which is why it has been ended.”

Penn officials and Hodara did not respond to questions about whether IvyStone clients ever applied to Penn.

For Hodara, this is the second gig outside of Penn she gave up this week. After Inside Higher Ed reported that she had been serving on an advisory board for a company in Japan
that is paid by clients to help them win admission into top M.B.A.
programs in the United States, she resigned from that position. In a
statement, she said: “Since accepting this position, I’ve done no work
with the company, I have attended no meetings, and I have received no
compensation. To avoid the appearance of any possible conflict of
interest I’ve resigned from the committee effective immediately.”

Earlier, she had defended her role on the company as ethical because
she was not involved in counseling clients, only providing advice to
company employees who did so.

IvyStone, however, offered services that were direct consulting. While Hodara took down the company’s Web site, archived versions of it are available online through the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine
and show that the company offered counseling on a per-visit arrangement
up through a three-year package, that counseling covered developing a
list of colleges, planning for campus visits, simulated admissions
interviews, and help to “present the ‘best you’ there is.” Material on
the company’s Web site as of Thursday morning noted that Hodara had
previously worked in undergraduate admissions at Penn.

“I have first-hand admissions experience as Associate Director of
Admissions at the University of Pennsylvania where I read and counseled
more than 10,000 applicants, both from the U.S. and abroad. I am
currently a Senior Associate Director of Admissions at the Wharton
School M.B.A. Program, and I also maintain a strong pulse on the
undergraduate process,” said Hodara in a Q&A posted on the
company’s Web site.

Lloyd Thacker, founder of the Education Conservancy, a group
committed to reforming college admissions, said he was shocked to hear
that an admissions officer had a consulting business for applicants on
the side. “I would hope anybody in the profession would say that this
is unethical, wrong and should not happen,” he said.

There is no evidence that Hodara in any way hid her outside activities. In a biography for a podcast, she noted both her Wharton job and her business.

Thacker said that the situation leaves him with many questions: “Why
didn’t the college know about her doing business on the side. If people
did know, why didn’t the college do something about it?”

— Scott Jaschik

不会吧，有此等事？

由于去年FEEDBACK SESSION里面她给我提了很好的建议，我还在RE-APPLICATION ESSAY里面特意对她表示了真诚的感谢。估计学校一避嫌，马上把我毙了

这也太不公正了吧？

What a Shame!!!!!!

其实已经不是新闻了。

看看这位家长说的：

Recruiting high school students at Penn’s Summer Programs

My daughterin high school attended a month-long program at Penn this summer. During the closing presentation of the program, Hodara was a guest speaker for the high school students and their parents. Penn scheduled her to talk about college admissions to selective universities. She had a question and answer period following her presentation and she handed out dozens of business cards for her IvyStone business. I have one sitting right here beside my computer. Certainly, Penn knows the consulting business Hodara is involved in; that is why they scheduled her to speak to high school students and parents. They introduced her as an associate director of admissions at Wharton and as a personal consultant for IvyStone. In this case, they were helping her to promote her consulting services to perspective students from around the country and abroad. As I sat in the audience that day, I wondered about the conflict of interest myself.

Last year Judith interviewed me， and asked some very detailed questions about my experiece in my college 9-13 years ago. I could not remember clearly. I believe it was not proper for her to pay much attention to my college life rather than my long working experience. In my mind Wharton cares much about integrity, but in fact, it is also difficult for Wharton to deal with Judith and the ethical dilemma.

However, I wish Judith could be learn form this mistake and recover from it soon.