An interesting story on an Ivy League student and would-be Rhodes Scholar in The Chronicle of Higher Education

Ironically Penn seemed to have no problem promoting her story when it was to their advantage despite the fact that they had all of the facts from the beginning. They only turned on her and had a problem with her story when it was to their advantage to do so.

The other villain of this piece is the mother, who despite bringing in a doctor’s salary, didn’t contribute a dime to her daughter’s education and who then initiated this whole investigation by vindictively undermining her daughter’s achievements. Really sick behaviour here. And where was the father? Did I miss that?

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Nor am I.

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Did the story remind anyone else of the Washington Post reporter from several years ago? The one who made up several preteen drug addicts profiled in her article? Given the inconsistencies in her story, it is quite likely one of her classmates from sky-diving, horseback-riding or school might have alerted the press after reading the newspaper story.

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I am looking at the Penn website as I type this. The FGLI program is still there and reads as follows:

“FGLI refers to first generation, low-income, meaning, students who are first in their family to go to college and/or who come from low-income households. . .”

Ms. Fierceton clearly qualified under this definition and would still qualify if she were applying today. The program is clearly aimed at two different groups, which may in some cases overlap. There was no misrepresentation by Ms. Fierceton in her application to Penn in any way. If anyone misrepresented the situation, it was the people at Penn, who sought to gain recognition for the university by widely publicizing Ms. Fierceton’s Rhodes’ achievement and who themselves either intentionally or inadvertently exaggerated her background story.

Two Penn professors from inside the U Penn community, who have every reason to take their employer’s side in this case, dispute the university’s version of the case and attest to the fact that the university was in complete possession of all of the facts of Ms. Fierceton’s background from the beginning. They further claim that Ms. Fierceton herself made unsuccessful attempts to correct the misstatements of her background that the university was promoting.

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In terms of her essays/story on abuse, her experience in foster care and how that has shaped and driven her, they sound genuine from her point of view. If there is any embellishment or hyperbole, she is probably no more guilty than any applicant. What I reserve judgment on for her, Penn and Rhodes, is how she may have represented her first gen status. A first gen boost is a recognition of more hurdles for the applicant to overcome in a family dynamic where the parents don’t have experience with or much knowledge of higher education and in many cases may not value higher education. She must have filled out the parent section of the Common App on the basis of her foster parent(s). Did she write about her experience pre-foster care, and if so did she do so in a misleading way, including by omission. She obviously did describe the incident that put her into hospital care and the foster care system. What did her LoR’s and GC reports say about here home situation, if anything? I find it hard to believe that Penn could not have picked up on the fact that her prior 17 years was in a privileged household and kind of “unsaw” that to admit another person they could classify as first gen. The tragedy of it all, it sounds like if she had not claimed first gen and was honest about her struggles with her mom, she still would have gotten into Penn and gotten a Rhodes based on her college and Masters accomplishments and the hurdles she did have to face.

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The Rhodes committee was told by her that she was first-gen. Not by its definition, apparently.

No, it didn’t remind me of the Jason Blair story in the slightest (if that’s who you’re referring to).

The person who alerted the press was reportedly her mother, who had her own self-serving motives as she was trying to have the facts of this situation expunged from the record to enhance her own standing within the medical community.

Sky diving? Horseback riding? I kissed those in what I read. We’re they reported in the locked article. By the reports I read, she was involved in an abusive relationship with her mother, which doesn’t sound like an idyllic childhood.

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Yes, in the Chronicle story. Difficult for the schools and committee to overlook photographic evidence of her participation in expensive hobbies and ownership of a car when they believed she was from a low-income upbringing

What she qualified for at Penn is FGLI, which is first gen OR low income. She was legitimately low income. No misrepresentation there.

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But she claimed to be both to Rhodes

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Does getting beaten by your parent to the point of hospitalization constitute a privileged background ?

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This is the pure intent of first gen, but with colleges nothing is pure. They want to be able to brag about URM, but they are happy with those URM come from wealthy homes and academically rigorous high schools so they don’t have to create academic programs to support them. They want to be able to tout the number of Pell Grant recipients they have, but they tend to be more likely to choose Pell Grant kids who come from known and respected urban schools or with parents with college degrees because there is less risk.

Along these same lines, they are willing to create a rather fluid and subjective definition of first gen, which invites use by applicants like this young woman. The AO who read her application knew where she went to high school, what kind of high school it was, and what kind of academic preparation and advantages this young woman had. The high school counselor and teacher recommendations likely gave more color and information to admissions. I’m sure the admissions committee was thrilled to admit someone with the kind of background she had given that they could tag her as first gen.

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Thanks.

I’m now confused. She was removed from her home prior to her junior year in high school. She was barely old enough to have a driver’s license at that point, how could she own a car.

We’ve all seen stories of rich parents who make expensive toys available to their kids who at the same time are physically and/or psychologically abusing them. As the Beatles said, “Money can’t buy me love.”

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Quite possibly. But her mistake was to then try to further exploit that with the Rhodes committee, which takes a more traditional view of definitions. Had she merely graduated from Penn, the whole incident might never have arisen. An overreach on her part, which wasn’t even necessary-Oxford accepts doctoral candidates based on academic promise, not sob stories, so she could have been and was admitted regardless.

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Perhaps you could subscribe to the OP article originally cited for further details. She drove her car to school the morning after the incident with her mother. As she spent just under a year in foster care, she entered that at age 17, in Sept 2014, presumably the fall of her junior year. She continued to live with her final foster placement after she aged out at age 18.

This is what was in the Higher Ed article:

The university’s report devotes several pages to whether Fierceton qualifies as a first-generation student. It zeroes in on a question in her master’s application: “Are you the first generation in your family to attend college?” To that, she answered “yes.” A written section below offered space for more information about how being a “member of a community that has been historically underrepresented in higher education” will help the applicant contribute to the program. In that space, Fierceton identifies as a “low-income, first-generation woman” and writes that she believes that this has given her an “understanding of the unique barriers low-income females face in accessing higher education.” While she allows that she does “possesses several privileged identities,” she doesn’t mention her mother’s career or the fact that, for the majority of her childhood, she would not have been considered low-income.

So she did at some point claim first gen status, not just low income. It looks like she and her supporters are using the broadened definition which includes not identifying with your biological parents who may have gone to college or even crazier yet , "The university’s first-generation, low-income student organization has included as first-generation those who are the first in their families to “pursue higher education at an elite institution,” which makes almost everyone first gen if they want to be so classified.

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I actually agree with you on this point-she likely would have been admitted to Penn as an undergraduate based on an accurate representation. Probably not enough for the Rhodes, though-or at least she didn’t think so as she kept up the story.

You don’t need a sob story to win a Rhodes. So if that was her belief, she was sadly mistaken, and made the costly mistake of misrepresenting.

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Sad story. I might understand her identifying as first gen. She probably identifies as having no family. If you’re estranged from your family you might see yourself as having no family at all. Thus, first gen.

What’s sadder to me is the amount of personal drama that candidates feel they need to share with educational institutions. A character recommendation, if needed, should come from a third party not the candidate themselves.

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I would think that explanation would be offered in the section provided, if that were the case