UW started investigating the admissions figures after someone at another college or university — officials did not specify who or where — raised a question about the data to a UW-Madison administrator, spokeswoman Meredith McGlone said Thursday.

That review, led by staff from outside the engineering school, found the incorrect figures were the result of errors made when accessing the numbers from an admissions database, McGlone said.

There was “no indication” the incorrect numbers were intentional, she said, and the university promptly contacted U.S. News to give them the correct data.

The company’s Best Graduate Schools guide now classifies the UW-Madison engineering program as “unranked.”

Each of UW-Madison’s schools and colleges is responsible for reporting its own data to rankings such as U.S. News, McGlone said.

The university is now considering changing that practice, making it “more centralized” to ensure accurate figures are submitted, she said.

“There is no indication of any other errors or issues” with the data from UW-Madison’s programs, McGlone said.