Marilee Jones starts a "second act"

Parents Forum
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<p>It’s not viciousness. It’s that most people have a very low tolerance for big-time hypocrisy. Consider the big living-a-lie scandal of the moment: Tiger Woods. What Tiger did was wrong and stupid and he deserves all the criticism and laughter, but the bottom line is that Tiger’s running around with other women has nothing to do with playing golf.</p>

<p>In contrast. Marilee’s lie about her academic achievements and dishonesty in putting forth her credentials goes directly to the heart of her professional work. If people are going to get worked up over Tiger Woods, so much more does Marilee Jones deserve the low opinions she has generated for herself. Being a helpful and kindly person does nothing to make that hypocrisy go away.</p>

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<p>To second the comments of jym626 and coureur: Truth is a core value of the academy. Following the route dictated by personal integrity will from time to time put one at a disadvantage. I truly believe that most people swallow hard and accept the disadvantage.</p>

<p>Of course, we are all human (unless there is a really, really good AI program on this forum); but speaking for many, I’d say: We do our level best, and try to set things right, whenever possible.</p>

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<p>“Marilee’s lie about her academic achievements and dishonesty in putting forth her credentials goes directly to the heart of her professional work.”</p>

<p>That’s right. Her job was to sit in judgment of the credentials, and the honesty, of others. We can be certain that in her years as dean, she was involved in the rejection of candidates for exaggerating their achievements on the application. If she wants to continue working in that field, she can’t just say that all that is “behind” her and expect others to forget about it.</p>

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Thanks jessiehl, post #57, for elaborating on the positive impressions you have of Marilee. Every article I’ve read mentions her formerly great reputation, but it’s never clear what exactly she did that was so important. While I do agree that there’s a lot of viciousness expressed against her here, I think part of the reason that her fraud is so troubling is simply because she was in a position of judging so many students for so long.</p>

<p>Still, I find nothing from the quote above to be particularly impressive or unique to Marilee, other than maybe the marketing innovation of student blogs. She did push a good message, but I saw no real effect; it was all talk. I don’t think she or her people should get credit for admitting great classes – the students at MIT have always been great; it’s not a tough job to pick terrific kids from such a great pool. And minority recruitment has been up at schools across the country and has little to do with Marilee. </p>

<p>What I find interesting is that so many people knew this woman before the scandal – I can’t think of another admissions director that was this well-known by name. Part of that was because of the publicity tour for her book, of course. But I still think her real gift was for self-promotion, not college admissions. She got incredible milage out of the fact that she was admissions director of MIT. Her book would have received little notice had she been employed at Podunk U, so I think her influence came mostly from <em>where</em> she was, rather than <em>who</em> she was or what she had actually accomplished.</p>

<p>Clearly you don’t need more than a bachelor’s degree from an unknown Catholic college to become a very successful admissions director at MIT. It’s too bad that she felt she needed to cover up her real degree and embellish, and who knows if she would have gotten the original job without the false credentials. But evidently all she really needed was some marketing savvy and an outgoing personality and she was deemed a big success in her field.</p>

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<p>Yes, just before her fakery was exposed, she was going around the country on a speaking tour in which she was accepting introductions and program biographies that referred to her as a holder of a doctoral degree. That’s slimy and disgusting. She knew all along what degrees she really had. She is completely unconvincing in giving advice to young people about how and why to pursue higher education if she has made up her whole higher education career. I don’t want her misplaced priorities to rub off on any child in my care.</p>

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<p>Does MIT have an honor code or code of ethics for students/faculty?? My kids had to sign honor codes at school. Seems students AND faculty should do this. But in looking for such at MIT, all I could find was a code of ethics for the MIT Hacks! Strangely ironic, eh? [IHTFP</a> Hack Gallery: The “Hacker Ethic”](<a href=“http://hacks.mit.edu/misc/ethics.html]IHTFP”>IHTFP Hack Gallery: The "Hacker Ethic") It includes

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<p>Seems to me if the hacks done at MIT are supposed to not damage anyone physically, mentally or emotionally, the same should hold true for the behavior of the faculty.</p>

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<p>Marilee Jones has decades of experience setting up and running a college admissions office. Obviously, some institutions have found her advice in a consulting capacity useful. If I were her, I would have stayed in the background and under the radar.</p>

<p>She probably needs the work. The last thing she needs is the publicity.</p>

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<p>That is gospel.</p>

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<p>I need to correct a factual error in my post #59–geomom’s son IS at MIT! geomom, please let me know right away if you’d like this post taken down. He just wasn’t admitted EA. I won’t take entitlement so far as to claim that people are entitled to EA admission. Not sure whether I misrecollected, or whether I didn’t hear the update on geomom’s son’s story. I wish him, and everyone who is at MIT, all the best!</p>

<p>I was thinking also, though, of hopelesslydevote, WaitingforGodot, and another spectacularly qualified applicant from hopelesslydevote’s year, whose UserName momentarily eludes me.</p>

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<p>One of the posters has described the criticism on this thread as “vindictive” and “vicious”. Below are excerpts from online definitions of those terms:</p>

<p>Vindictive: Disposed to seek revenge; revengeful. 2. Marked by or resulting from a desire to hurt; spiteful. …</p>

<p>Vicious: Given to or characterized by vice; evil, corrupt, or depraved; tending to deprave or corrupt; pernicious vicious interests; harmful, unwholesome, …</p>

<p>Like mathmom’s son, my son is an owner of one of the last rejection letters sent out with Marilee Jones’s signature at the bottom. (Also like mathmom’s son, he was accepted to CMU School of Computer Science, but he doesn’t attend there). Does that automatically make my criticisms motivated by vindictiveness? If the opinions of those whose family members were rejected are automatically dismissed as motivated by revenge, doesn’t that make the opinions of those who were accepted by Marilee automatically suspect also, on the grounds that high opinions of Jones’s selection criteria are self-serving?</p>

<p>The issue is character, and frankly it can be assessed objectively. All the while Jones (or her proxies) evaluated student ‘resumes’ (in this case, applications) for qualifications both academic and personal, the judge herself was guilty of lying about her own academic qualifications, and by doing so proved that she lacked the personal strength of character that an institution like MIT deserves. </p>

<p>In my opinion, her continued involvement in the field of competitive college applications is testimony that she fails to recognize the damage she inflicted on the entire field, and is evidence that the character issue has not been resolved.</p>

<p>Friendliness, outgoing demeanor, big talk about doing good are not a substitute for character. I have an acquaintance who held state-wide elected office who is outgoing, friendly, energetic, concerned, very smart, talked about doing good and in fact did a lot of good, and so on—but he engaged in fraudulent activities while running a campaign and then lied about it to the FBI, and now he is headed for jail. Some of those with whom he was friends, or with whom he worked closely on legislative initiatives, have come to his defense on the grounds that he did more good than harm, but the fact is, he debased the electoral system and proved himself unworthy of the trust of the voters. I see parallels here.</p>

<p>She needs to find another line of work, just as my politician friend will have to do when he gets out of jail.</p>

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<p>“She probably needs the work. The last thing she needs is the publicity.”</p>

<p>Whoa – are you serious? Every consultant in the country would KILL for a NY Times profile. In terms of attracting business, it’s far, far better to be well known with a largely negative reputation than to be unknown. As we’ve seen on this thread, the majority of CC members (aka her target audience) think she doesn’t belong in the industry and wouldn’t hire her. But a minority is comfortable with her comeback and might hire her if they were in the market for a consultant, or mention her to others who were seeking. Suppose the majority-minority split is really drastic, like 95%/5%. Literally tens of thousands of well-heeled NY Times readers would be in that 5%. Now they all know her name, her bio, her fees, and the fact that her services are available, along with the fact that the newspaper of record thinks her comeback is big news. There’s no marketing budget that could buy better promotion than that.</p>

<p>There’s no doubt in my mind that this was a savvy business move on her part. The only question is why the NY Times decided to use its power to promote her business.</p>

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<p>From the New York Times article:</p>

<p>“Ms. Jones sees herself as a guidance counselor for parents, and stresses that she is not an independent college counselor mapping out strategies to get a child into college, but rather a counselor helping parents learn to support their children through a time of tension.”</p>

<p>This sounds as if Marilee is setting herself up as a therapist, of sorts. I think it is important to point out that this is also something that people become trained and credentialed in, and Marilee seems to be, again, winging it. Now, people are free to hire her, if they wish. But what if a family’s problems are bigger than stress over college admissions? Will she recognize the problem? Will she know what to say and do, who to refer to? Or will her lack of knowledge hurt someone?</p>

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<p>^^She was very well known before her fall from grace…not the same as being a complete unknown. College admissions offices may have felt comfortable hiring her expertise on the “down low,” but if higher ups in college administration start worrying about the negative publicity factor associated with her past, they can put the kabosh on the hiring or insist she be fired.</p>

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<p>I think you make a good point, midmo. </p>

<p>Can everyone at least acknowledge, though, that many times threads on CC have a vindictive, schadenfreude tone, which instead of emphasizing the seriousness of the point the poster is trying to make, puts people on the defensive? CCers draw up their battle lines and before you know it, it’s a classic CC spat and nobody sees anyone’s point and people get offended and then it’s just an exercise in futility.</p>

<p>It should also be respected that MIT, like most institutions, has an ardent esprit-de-corps. It could reasonably be said that people who don’t attend (or whose kids don’t attend) that university opine on tragedies for their own purposes – not necessarily genuine and serious concern.</p>

<p>Trust me, the MIT community, like at other fine universities, is perfectly capable of pitiless self-examination and deep knowledge of tragedies that occur there.</p>

<p>Nobody thinks what Marilee Jones did is ethical or appropriate. Nobody is excusing it. But just as in a trial, character witnesses do tend to even out the picture somewhat, for what it’s worth.</p>

<p>Ms. Jones may have had a King Lear problem. She took quite the fall, don’t you think?</p>

<p>Perhaps we should just stone her to death and call it a day.</p>

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<p>The issues of how college admissions offices are run and how private college counselors operate is bigger than one institution. I think you are off-base if you are criticizing posters on this thread for opining on these issues “for their own purposes”, since “their own purposes” are, in many cases, a genuine interest in how post-secondary institutions operate.</p>

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<p>That was not a criticism, it was an observation. But actually your post ^ ^ is emblematic, when you zero in on one poster in this way.</p>

<p>Excellent example! Thanks.</p>

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<p>I don’t really see the vindictiveness in the comments. </p>

<p>I have multiple connections with MIT. I was a post-doc there, one of my good friends is on the faculty, several co-authors of my co-authors are on the faculty, I taught one of the faculty members when he was an undergrad . . . </p>

<p>The admissions decisions at MIT are reasonably of concern to the entire scientific community. In my opinion, it makes sense to “match” the MIT faculty with the students who can learn the most from them, and who actually most need the level of challenge that MIT provides.</p>

<p>I recognize a number of the posters on this thread as supporters of personal integrity across a broad range of contexts; e.g, from threads on the topic of whether one can back out of ED after the decision has been announced. I value those posters’ reaffirmations of commitment to integrity.</p>

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<p>geomom,</p>

<p>The fact that Marilee is “stressing that she is not an independent college counselor” makes me wonder if she got sanctioned by the National Association of College Admission Counselors (I postulated upthread that if she had been a member that they probably discontinued her membership and possibly imposed some restrictions on the use of the title as well as laid out what she would have to do to requalify for membership consideration) and is trying to use a title that either isn’t regulated in the private sector in NY (as opposed to requirements within a school system to use this title) or that she might have determined a way to meet qualifications or be grandfathered in (which typically, under normal circumstances, requires some post-bacalaureate additional education/training in this specialty area, and according to the link below, seems to suggest she might not qualify for a position within a NY school system without specialty certification): <a href=“Not-Found - American School Counselor Association (ASCA)”>http://www.schoolcounselor.org/content.asp?contentid=242&lt;/a&gt;

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<p>If the title isn’t regulated in the private sector in NY,she can call herself a grand poobah guidance counselor if she wants. Some states have title acts, and some have practice acts for licensure in certain professions. If guidance counseling doesnt require a license in the private arena in NY, she can try to use that verbiage. She can’t call herself a therapist, though. That is regulated in most states at the masters and doctoral level.</p>

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<p>S was in one of last classes put together by Marilee Jones, so no personal ax to grind, but she always struck me as one of those “Do as I say, not as I do” sort of people.</p>

<p>She lectured about making college admissions less stressful but did nothing concrete herself to make MIT admissions less stressful. MIT was fully on the get number of apps up and selectivity % lower streaks during her tenure. At the time, MIT seemed to love to brag they often turned away “applicants with perfect statistics”. Hardly an environment conducive to reducing stress. </p>

<p>Her one effort, much quoted by press at the time, seemed to be summed up by including a short question on the MIT app “Tell us about somthing you do for the pleasure of it”. Boys who answered “play sports” were dubbed by Marilee in interviews as “uninteresting” (and now that i think about it this question could have lead to some very inappropriate answers :>) ). The much quoted response, throughly endorsed by Marilee, was something along the lines of “curling up under a blanket watching while old movies and eating popcorn” …not sure why that was more valid in Marilee’s mind than playing sports except perhaps that is what she does “sheerly for the pleasure of it”.<br>
In short, this turned into just another anxiety producing short question that students wondered if they would get “wrong”.</p>

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<p>King Lear was betrayed by his daughters. Ms. Jones was betrayed by nobody but herself. And she did take a fall but now seeks to rise again, if not all the way back up to monarch, she at the least seeks to once again be a princess.</p>