<p>At least one of the problems that I see is that colleges will not disclose academic issues with anyone other than the student. As I understand it, Bowdoin would have been prohibited from contacting Wheeler’s parents to explain why they were no longer receiving a tuition bill (assuming no full scholarship there). And, inasmuch as he was not on a full need scholarship at Harvard, that bill went somewhere. When confronted with the charges of academic dishonesty by Harvard last fall, he was allowed to simply withdraw.</p>
<p>Yale is being given kudos for catching him by going back to his HS GC, so it appears that he changed from Phillips Andover to his public HS, but then forged his HS transcript. However, he must have forged his Harvard transcript to apply to “transfer” from Harvard to Yale. One would think that Yale’s admissions office would first put in a call to Harvard if they saw anything “odd” about the transcript. Maybe they assumed that he had “seen the light” and there was no need to call Harvard.</p>
<p>One thing a lot of people have done is to conflate the lies on his New Republic resume with the lies on the Harvard transfer application and then berate Harvard for not seeing their “obvious” falsity. It appears that he lied about his SAT scores and “grades” at schools/colleges he did not attend. I don’t understand how he could have forged his CollegeBoard scores or his Phillips Andover or MIT transcripts because I would have expected that they would have come from the source and not him. I can actually see how he could fake one of them, but not all three. I don’t know about the letter grade vs. number grade at MIT issue as I have not seen it referenced in any of the news articles that I have read. You would think that Harvard would know how MIT grades, but it could be a reporter simply substituting 4.0 for A or vice versa.</p>
<p>And to those CCers who wish to use this episode to bash Harvard/the Ivy League/elite schools, etc., you really need to get a life.</p>
<p>First of all, I really don’t see any significant changes on the horizon, and the ones I’ve proposed myself (e.g., a radical change to the way applications are completed, which would allow seniors to fill out a truly common application in a single Saturday-morning session with no supplemental essays … and coaching) was largely ridiculed by admissions brass as “dumbing-down” the current process.</p>
<p>Secondly, as I said before, even if a magic wand ratcheted up the sanity level a thousand fold, there will still be a gazillion questions left to be asked … and answered. But in my perfect world, these questions would focus far more on student/school match than on molding middle schoolers into ideal Ivy applicants or in other ways gaming a system that is often just a crap shoot.</p>
<p>It’s not just CC. Even on the normally sane, thoughtful comment sections of the NYT blogs, it’s been pages after pages of the most vicious schadenfreude bleeding out in every which way. I understand that the Ivys aren’t the most popular institutions these days with the general public–then again, what institutions are?–but the amount of clueless vitriol is really quite disturbing. Maybe it’s driven by an unhealthy dose of envy? </p>
<p>It’s one thing to criticize Harvard, or the Ivy League in general (heck, I have my own laundry list of criticisms for the elite schools and my alma mater), but it seems as if people are happy to lash out without first getting their facts straight. With new info still coming to light by the hour, I’ll reserve my final judgment on the matter. With that said, based on the info currently available, as an alum and a former transfer student (the year before Mr. Wheeler, in fact), I’m quite disturbed by the apparent carelessness (and cluelessness–i.e. MIT 1st semester frosh grades are P/F) displayed by the admissions office, and especially the transfer committee.</p>
<p>This kid is smart. Crazy like a fox smart. So smart that he probably did well in many of his classes at Harvard. But there is clearly pathology here. What great lengths he went to to lie and lie some more and then continue to lie. If he had just gone on without more lies once he got accepted. His applications for Rhodes apparently lists co-authorship on books. Like no one was going to check? He got so brazen as to then look stupid. </p>
<p>I agree that he is like a young Bernie Madoff. And without treatment he could be dangerous.</p>
<p>Yale caught on during the transfer application when they called a parent and learned learn he had been kicked out of Harvard and that his educational history has been a total lie. Crazier still is that he could just leave Harvard silently once he was discovered. I am not bashing Harvard, they are victims here. But the fact that he could first get away with this, and when discovered could just walk away is curious.</p>
<p>NYT bloggers are sane, and thoughtful. Commenters on any blog, anywhere, are generally smug/hysterical nutcases. Not all of them, but a good 40%.</p>
<p>I find it unbelievable that IVY schools accept SAT or ACT scores that are not delivered directly from the test services and that they accept transcripts not received directly from the actual schools – especially IVYs. Am I missing something or did this guy hack into all the databases and change his scores and transcripts?</p>
<p>“I think what this really points to is problems with information in the computer age. Remember in the old days all transcripts had raised seals?”</p>
<p>Many moons ago, the Uni I wanted to enroll at wanted an “official HS transcript with a seal.” My HS refused – perhaps the problem was crossing international boundaries. I was pretty clueless back then how to navigate bureaucracies, but I took a copy of my transcript to a notary who photocopied my copy, wrote in small print “this is a faithful copy of an unofficial copy of a HS transcript” (or something similar) and then put a HUGE impressive wax stamp on it. It was accepted without a problem.</p>
<p>Had he hacked into the databases of the CollegeBoard or MIT, he’d be facing various other charges in federal court and an investigation by the FBI.</p>
<p>ilikecollage, I don’t see how your “sour grapes” apply to me; I didn’t need to cheat my way into Harvard nor fabricate my resume to make it impressive. I can assure you that my sentiments for this charlatan are of scorn only. </p>
<p>I might also say that cheating one’s way into a college in the United States under current circumstances does not require any extraordinary intelligence at all; it is always easy to cheat when regulations are lax, and most of the operations are run by entities who hope that applicants be honest. The application process depends on the applicants’ honesty very much and therefore has lots of loopholes, which people like Wheeler readily exploit.</p>
<p>Adam grew up in the high school that serves the military base where I grew up as well as serving all the civilian kids in a really nice home town in Delaware near the water. The pressure to do well in this high school is not extraordinary at all. Most people make sensible plans and have reasonable goals. I read somewhere that his father was also the Shop teacher at Ceasar Rodney which made me sad for this family. Obviously his father did not find working for a living in a real job to be “beneath him.” What could be more of a reality based life than showing up daily to teach high school kids?
How complicit the parents were in covering their son’s fantastical deceptions we do not know yet but I find it hard to believe they were clueless as to how he got to Harvard. Perhaps there were other red flags and compromises that they chose to ignore. Perhaps like many parents of young men this age, they hoped that peculiarity would not turn into criminality or mental illness. Their ineptitude or their enabling…we may learn more about. But this case hits me in the same place that workplace violence hits me…it gives me a sense of lack of safety from harm when someone can blithely perpetuate fraud in your midst. His lack of reality base is deeply unsettling and disturbing.<br>
My reaction to seeing someone so close to my own youthful haunts: Questions about how someone becomes this cunning and this intentional is more about the banality of evil or questions about organicity combined with character flaws. And since I have a degree in mental health services…it raises questions about what part is nature, what part is nurture, and how does one young man become preoccupied with narcissistic, fantastical fabulist images of himself while the next young man in similar circumstances…in the seat next to you in your own high school’s National Honor Society…manages to live within the rules of proportion, honesty and common decency?</p>
<p>After reviewing his resume to the National Review, I have to wonder about mania as well as questions of character. There is something manic about the obvious lies and fables and the fantastically plagiarized wordplay on that resume. I can hardly give the NR credit for not accepting him as an intern if they didn’t immediately also call his “references” in order to ask questions that obviously would have alerted Harvard to someone who was clearly off the rails. </p>
<p>I have no patience really with the Ivy bashing in some commentary…Bowdoin is a wonderful institution and they opened their doors to him and he was asked to leave after what must have been a flagrant violation of academic integrity. This happens in every student body…admissions is not a CIA level inquisition process, and really strange people will get through. Perhaps one of the most apt responses online was the one which referenced the MIT Director of Admissions who falsified her resume…gotta wonder if that combined with the nearby Boston locale allowed him to get over some poor Harvard alum who agreed to meet him at Bowdoin for the “transfer interview” that helped validate his next gambit and helped him simply sweep right by Harvard’s adcoms’ radar on his successful transfer application from a college that had expelled him.</p>
<p>Honestly Harvard, whining about losing $43,000?, Cry me a river! Last time I checked they had a $25 Billion Endowment. He went to class, he took the tests, he bought the books, just give him the diploma! I can’t believe everyone is so quick to arrest the kids who want to educate themselves; you’re lucky he wasn’t a drug dealer or child molester.</p>
<p>Well, he did plagiarize nearly ever assignment he handed in… so I think that his dismissal from Harvard was warranted, even on just this basis alone.</p>
<p>Applying for federally supported grant aid under false pretenses is a federal crime, and there appears to be a Massachusetts statute that covers similar behavior. The public prosecutor, who is not an officer of Harvard university, has looked at the alleged behavior of the defendant and made certain charging decisions before trial. As the case unfolds during further investigation, it will be seen what the disposition of each charge is and what the outcome is for the defendant.</p>
<p>I am very surprised at the number of individuals who can easily excuse his actions because he just wanted an education. It helps me understand little “Enron incidents.”</p>