There’re always two sides to a story. One can choose to believe one side or the other. But one central question in any such case is about motivation. Who has the motivation and the greatest motivation? What motivation does UPenn have? Or the Rhodes trust? Or the girl? Or her mother?
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Their class size would remain the same, but some of the students would be different as the dishonest ones would be gone. I would call that an improvement.
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Your 2 reasons for saying that “this is a girl prone to distorting the truth” are that “4 characters fro her foster past SEEM fictitious.” Nothing factual in that allegation. And that the original prosecutor later became “less certain.” That doesn’t mean that the truth was distorted at all. It means that he wasn’t sure what the actual facts were one way or another.
But what we do know as fact is that she was kept in the hospital for more than 3 weeks. She suffered an obvious trauma given that she required a hospital stay of this length. From all of the research on memory and recall, it would be no surprise that her memory would be muddled and that her recall of events would be less than clear.
What we also know as fact is that social services determined that the mother was unfit to parent her and that she was in fact placed in a foster home. Social services are extremely reluctant to place children in foster homes and do everything they can to first maintain them in their parental home or to place them with a relative. The fact that they placed her in foster care means that they could find no relative to place her with. Not only was the mother deemed to be unfit, the father was apparently nowhere to be found, nor was any other relative. Something was seriously wrong.
What is also a fact is that despite having the first month of her junior year in high school disrupted by hospitalization and transition from her home to foster care, she maintained her grades and school standing to be a viable Ivy League candidate the following year. That’s quite an accomplishment.
You say that she seems quite litigious because she has filed one lawsuit in her life. I don’t see that as litigious. That lawsuit is not frivolous. It is for the purpose of obtaining her master’s degree, for which she had completed all the requirements as the university formally stated in correspondence with her. What was their reason for withholding the degree? To punish her. We know that because the university was withholding the degree pending a report from a disciplinary committee. What would you do under those circumstances? Not sue? Nothing litigious about her behaviour whatsoever.
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I meant booting them after they were already there. If they went back and fact-checked current students’ application essays and expelled the embellishers — that could whittle down the size of the student body.
It would be encouraging if I thought they would uncover just one or two and are able to spot most of the liars before an acceptance is ever given. Unfortunately, I have my doubts — kind of along the lines of how many tax cheaters does the IRS catch, know what I mean?
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Or the two professors supporting the young lady student ?
I wonder what impact photos would have on this situation. There are just too many credible individuals who support the student’s version regarding her traumatic experiences.
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No proof the mother was determined to be unfit. That’s a formal adjudication; nothing states that occurred, nor is that the standard for foster care placement. There are many potential reasons for such placement. The prosecutor dropped the charges and expunged the mother’s record stating he was unsure what happened between mother and daughter, yet somehow you are convinced you know more than he does based on some news articles.
I am not doubting she was traumatized, but neither the Rhodes nor grad school admittance were automatic upon a finding of trauma. One can be a trauma victim and still misrepresent one’s background and situation.
Unlike the judge, who commented that the hospitalization seemed inconsistent with the trauma? Lots of unanswered questions here, and our speculation won’t provide answers.
Bottom line, she applied for a prestigious award from a famous nonprofit which later concluded it had been subject to her misrepresentation and she withdrew rather than have it revoked. Their award, their investigation, their rules. They do not owe her the scholarship.
Her representations with respect to graduate degree are subject to Penn’s internal determination; generally a faculty/admin committee on student conduct and standing reviews those for final approval by the school president. It appears to be still pending. Consistency is one of the goals; ensuring others who have submitted similarly troubled apps are treated the same way.
The abuse charges against her mother were dropped after the investigating officers were provided Mackenzie’s diary which described her thoughts/plans about accusing her mother of abuse so she could enter foster care or force her mother to provide other living arrangements. The main point of contention was the mother’s boyfriend was living at the house.
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Interesting development. What is the source ?
Even if true, a multi-week hospitalization is concerning. How are the injuries & need for hospitalization explained ?
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Private local FB group, from 2015.
Was this a peer-reviewed FB group ?
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Below is what the investigation from the Rhodes investigation found…
“The committee concluded that this was “inconsistent with the hospital records”
No one involved seems to suggest that she suffered trauma of some sort. None the less it appears she at best embellished and at worst “fabricated” elements of her narrative.
It is understandable that as an applicant gains maturity and seeks the most elite and competitive of opportunities the expectations of candor, scrutiny and forthrightness will increase.
Certainly retrospectively things may have been handled differently by Penn but ultimately the applicant is responsible for what he/she represents to the Rhodes Committee. They have no motivation to vilify a previously accepted high profile candidate. The fact the candidate opted to voluntarily withdraw lends validity to the committee’s findings.
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According to the young lady’s lawsuit, she withdrew after Penn threatened to go after (revoke) her undergraduate degree & to prevent her from receiving her masters degree.
Interesting things happen when one takes a witness stand under oath.
P.S. The Rhodes Committee finding has little to no impact on my view of the situation as Penn’s recommendation & action may have had a substantial impact upon their decision. One young lady versus the world including her own abusive mother. Everyone has a breaking point. When money is involved, it is amazing how facts evolve to support the monied interest.
Then how did this young lady sustain the serious injuries which required the multiple week hospital stay ?
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According to the young lady who seems more then comfortable standing up for her rights through litigation. She has an outstanding lawsuit that would have been bolstered had she not withdrawn and Rhodes found her application to be accurate.
Rhodes committee found her not to be credible. Only after that finding did she withdraw, the catalyst in spite of her counter narrative was Rhodes internal findings.
To be clear this is an excerpt from Rhodes…
“The committee concluded that this was “inconsistent with the hospital records”
Do you really think that if they had vindicated her and she had the option to pursue the Rhodes she wouldn’t have seen it through and used it as evidence to prevent Penn from taking action.
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Why did you conclude that she did sustain such physical injuries?
My understanding from this thread is that the young lady was hospitalized for 3 weeks.
The daughter claimed physical abuse by the mother; the mother asserted that the daughter fell down stairs while the mother was removing gum from the daughter’s hair.
Also, a hospital nurse supports the daughter’s version regarding injuries.
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While we are wildly speculating ….
I think she has epilepsy and perhaps there were injuries related to a seizure that landed her in the hospital when she lived with her mom. One of the pics in one of the articles has her wearing a t-shirt about epilepsy. Plus the injury she sued over at Penn arose from a seizure she had in a basement. As plausible of a theory as any.
But you know what? None of my business. She does have privacy rights, whether or not she is a good guy or bad guy, and there are probably angles to this very much intertwined with private medical records. Medical records of a minor at the time, to boot. We can’t possibly know what happened, as it should be.
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What we do know is the student has experienced seizures, appears to be an advocate for those suffering from epilepsy and was admitted to the hospital for a prolonged period for injuries that didn’t result in “caked blood” throughout her hair. Ultimately a DA after a review of facts opted to expunge any claims of abuse.
These are the only “facts” regarding her hospitalization that I have seen although I may have missed some. While I can’t possibly (nor can any of us) conclude why she remained in the hospital there are a litany of possible physical and mental reasons.
It is beyond dispute that she spent time in foster care and represented herself as first gen. Penn’s ambiguous definition seems to allow for her claim (but clearly not it’s intent).
She had clearly faced challenges and had troubles but in the eyes of the most independent of arbiters Rhodes Committee, District Attorney and the doctors who detailed her hospital admissions she embellished to a point of invalidating her claims against her mother and Rhodes application.
She may in fact be a victim but she is still accountable to tell the truth.
Sorry for some redundancy @CateCAParent i was typing while you posted.
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Like minds! 
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Ok, disclaimer first that I haven’t read through ALL the available articles, so I’m aware my own information is limited, and therefore could be completely wrong. However, this thread is fascinating, and here’s what I really want to know:
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are there previous abuses? None of the (limited number of) articles I’ve read mentioned any previous abuses, only the incident that led her to be hospitalized, which leads me to wonder…
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the timing - I mean, the timing!!! The incident happened when she was 17, which gave her enough time to get into the foster care system, which then became the whole basis of her essay, and may I say her “identify”? Even thought that ONE YEAR was NOT reflective of her entire life?
To completely throw your life away like her to me means there’s long term abuse. Many of us have had arguments with our parents growing up, and some may even had a slap on the face here or there. But none of us threw away our old life and started “fresh” in a foster care, and “forgot” about the old life. But I didn’t see long term abuse (mental or physical) mentioned anywhere - again, this could be due to we only have small part of the facts in this story.
And before anyone complain, I want to say here that one incident of abuse to anyone is ONCE TOO MANY! And no one should ever be subjected to any abuse, lest a child!!!
- another minor (?) detail, she applied as Queer, first gen, low income, and abused / foster care. Wow, she checked all the boxes!!! Without the incident and foster care, she would just be another queer white high achieving middle class female applicant.
Yes, I’m suspicious of her motives. But like I said, I’m not a witness to her life, and I haven’t read all the articles. And I certainly don’t have access to all the internal investigations by Rhodes / Penn. However, based on my cursory read, the above are glaring “uhmmm, hold on a minute” to me.
Also, personally, I don’t think any of the big institutions would take making a decision on her case lightly. They have their reputations to think of, and if they’re wrong, lawsuits knocking at their doors. So I’d assume they only made their decisions after substantial investigation and deliberations.