Penn State MBA Applications Screened Using 'Turnitin for Admissions'

OAKLAND, Calif., June 21 /PRNewswire/ -- iParadigms, creator of Turnitin for Admissions®, Turnitin®, and iThenticate® and the global leader in plagiarism prevention, today announced that its Turnitin for Admissions service has been selected by the Penn State Smeal College of Business. Applicants to Penn State's Master of Business Administration (MBA) program will have their admissions essays verified by Turnitin for Admissions.

"We developed Turnitin for Admissions at the request of our clients, who needed help verifying admissions and scholarship essays," said Chris Caren, President and CEO of iParadigms. "Because our service provides a way to quickly and accurately verify applicant-created documents, we are seeing strong interest among graduate and undergraduate admissions professionals. We're pleased to help the MBA program at Penn State make fair, well-informed decisions."

"For the last five years we've been seeking a way to universally screen essays, without success," said Carrie Marcinkevage, MBA Admissions Director of the Penn State Smeal College of Business. "This year we did see cases of plagiarism, ironically in our 'Principled Leadership admissions essay. Our strong focus on Principled Leadership and the Smeal Honor Code makes it important for us to maintain integrity in the admissions process. Penn State already uses Turnitin for student assignments and sees the use of Turnitin for Admissions as a natural extension of the technology."

"We are using the service with the MBA program to establish the process and best practices," said Marcinkevage. "During our tests we've used it to confirm existing cases and find new examples we hadn't found before. Turnitin for Admissions will allow us to efficiently and equitably screen essays for plagiarism. We don't have to rely on the memories of our team and we can be sure we're fair to every applicant."

Turnitin for Admissions compares submitted documents to a massive database of existing content then generates a comprehensive Similarity Report. The report highlights and provides links to any significant matches found within the document. By pinpointing these instances of unoriginal material, Turnitin for Admissions helps admissions staff to decide if plagiarism, duplication, collusion or other problems exist within the document.

About iParadigms LLC

iParadigms LLC is the world's leading provider of web-based solutions for plagiarism prevention. The company's products include Turnitin for Admissions, a service used by admissions professionals to help make more informed decisions when evaluating candidates' applications. The company's solutions check millions of documents each month and are used in over 100 countries in ten languages. iParadigms is headquartered in Oakland, CA and is backed by Warburg Pincus.

About the Smeal College of Business at Penn State University

Penn State's Smeal College of Business offers highly ranked undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA, Ph.D., and executive education opportunities to more than 5,500 students at all levels. Featuring academic departments of accounting, finance, marketing, insurance and real estate, management, and supply chain and information systems, the college is also home to major research centers such as the Center for Supply Chain Research, the Institute for the Study of Business Markets, the Center for Digital Transformation, the Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Center for Global Business Studies, and the Center for the Management of Technological and Organizational Change.

SOURCE iParadigms LLC