<p>"What he presented about the work his group had done was totally (or at least 90%) untrue. I did not confront him in the public questions after his talk, as I did not see the point of embarassing him publiclly, but did speak to him privately afterwards. He seemed embarrassed and told me he was just presenting what he had been told by his subordinates in that technical group under him (which I believe to be true.) I searched the Internet and found that this tecnical group's website also had claimed in its listing of its accomplishments to have done this work and that their results influenced public policy on this issue, without providing any further details or a link to a technical report, etc. It really bothered me to hear something like this, and now I am wondering how much of everything I hear in my professional work is false! "</p>
<p>I actually think that he deserved to have been embarassed in public. Even if it wasn't his fault, he still represented his company, and his company was lying.</p>
<p>I also think that you should have had his company change the info on their website.</p>
<p>IMO it's not enough to privately tell someone that they're wrong in this kind of situation that involves lying. One has to do what it takes to stop the lies or else they continue to proliferate.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
The rejection/deferred letters arrived well after the tubes, extending the stress and anxiety of waiting for the decision
[/QUOTE]
Ah, thank you, Poet. I was under the impression that the tubes arrived with confetti in them and all the decision letters hit a few days later.</p>
<p>If she claimed to have a PhD (which is not clear to me), it is incredibly surprising that no one ever even tried to look at her thesis or checked to see what papers she published. It's so incredibly odd.</p>
<p>The ethical dilemma for Ms. Jones' husband raises troubling issues.</p>
<p>He works in a position which surely requires a high security clearance (as an associate director of Lincoln Labs, the part of MIT dedicated to defense contract work.)</p>
<p>It's hard to imagine that he did not know of Ms. Jones' continuing deception of their common employer and the world at large. He might not have known of her original fabricated resume, but he must eventually have learned she had allowed MIT and her book publisher to misrepresent her credentials to the world at large. </p>
<p>Surely this revelation will have repercussions for his career as well.</p>
<p>"I actually think that he deserved to have been embarassed in public. Even if it wasn't his fault, he still represented his company, and his company was lying.</p>
<p>I also think that you should have had his company change the info on their website.</p>
<p>IMO it's not enough to privately tell someone that they're wrong in this kind of situation that involves lying. One has to do what it takes to stop the lies or else they continue to proliferate."</p>
<p>Northstarmom,
I see your point, but there were several reasons I did not publicly confront him: First, it was a minor point, totally peripheral to the actual topic he was supposed to be discussing. It was more part of an overview of his agency, which was background to the actual topic. Secondly, I had heard this guy's name many times before but had never seen him in person. He was obviously way past normal retirement age, and, to put it tactfully, did not seem as sharp mentally as you would expect someone in his position to be. I told him privately that he should just remove that slide from his talk if he gives it again, and it would not detract from his overall message. He thanked me and said he would talk to the people who gave him the information. I also plan to contact them myself and bring this to the attention of my workgroup (with members from many organizations) when I get back to work on Monday. This just happened a couple of days ago and I have not been back to work since I returned last night.</p>
<p>Her husband also claims this: B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Union College, 1975"</p>
<p>His wife was claiming a degree from Union College, too. It's a small liberal arts school.</p>
<p>I simply don't believe that he could have thought she went there unless she is a genius at sociopathy or their marriage is a complete sham. Surely, he would have noticed that she's not invited to alumni events, isn't in the alum directory, and, of course, wouldn't have information about the college that people would know if they had attended there.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I find it absolutely terrible and inexcusable that people are now impugning the integrity of the rest of the admissions staff.</p>
<p>They were not merely 'men carrying out the general's orders' and they were just as surprised to hear the news as the rest of us.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Remember, i say that it is complete speculation, and in this case probably untrue; i don't not believe that statement, only that with this new piece of information EVERYTHING about MIT admissions must be questioned! </p>
<p>Is it impossible that Jones hired only people who fit her own twisted criteria? NO! I do not believe she did that, and actually I am a big fan of Ben JOnes, however these are the terrible questions that must be asked at this time. </p>
<p>This rot is at the top of the chain; hopefully it did not spread.</p>
<p>As far as checking out her bio, it's not all that surprising to me that people attending those colleges in the mid-70s didn't realize she was not a fellow graduate. After all, there were never any specific graduation dates given, as far as I know. Also, it's not uncommon for women to change their names due to short-lived marriages. I know someone who earned an undergrad degree under a maiden name, then took her first husband's name before getting her graduate degrees, then divorced and remarried another husband but decided to keep the first husband's name for professional purposes, while using the second husband's name socially. </p>
<p>Verifying degrees for someone like that might not be a simple matter. Moreover, Jones is a very common name and many people use a first name socially which is actually their legal middle name, so the educational records for someone currently known as "Marilee Jones" could easily be listed in the records under the name of "Phoebe M. O'Donnell" due to change in usage of first and last names, based on personal preference for middle name and adopting a subsequent husband's married name.</p>
<p>As an alum my own personal bulls**t detector rang loud and clear when I took my son for an information session and tour. I adored my undergrad experience as did many other members of my son's family. But, what was being portayed as 'special' about MIT was in no way a reflection of my experience. I did feel the application gave a student a chance to show their best selves and I did and do agree with the message of 'being your best self' and letting that speak for you. I just couldn't get why there had to be this whole 'neat-cool-fun-no problem if you have 600's on your SAT' thing going on. A kid who is right for MIT is a kid who hangs in there when things are no longer neat-cool-fun. For the most part, a kid with a 600 SAT is just not going to be very happy. That's the truth. </p>
<p>Ms. Jones would have been the final reader on my son's application to MIT (as a legacy this is the case). She would have given the final approval to place him on the wait list. I feel fully confident that the decision she made on his application and many others in no way reflected the personal mistake and signficant breach of integrity she made. I did not try to second guess then, and I will not second guess now. His disappointment, and ours, was transient and he had many fine options. </p>
<p>For a person to be able to function with a lie, they have to somehow 'recreate' their own history in their mind. Come to feel that having said it so often, it is true. It is no longer an ongoing, intrusive issue. It is what they have come to believe, on some level. I really think this is the case.</p>
<p>What she chose to do many years ago was inexcusable and the perpetuation of a sheen of righteousness is a reflection on her and her alone. MIT is, in my way of thinking, too substantial an institution to be significantly impacted by this. Her staff and all affiliated with her who had no knowledge of her lies are the real victims.</p>
<p>anitaw: I agree that she had to have totally convinced herself, over the years, that she did, indeed, have those degrees. Otherwise, I believe she would have been a person always looking over her shoulder and would have certainly kept to the task at hand, and most definitely would have maintained a much lower profile. </p>
<p>I do believe others knew about this (if only immediate family), but I suspect more people were aware than we know (obviously not speaking of those currently working with her) and just didn't tell.</p>
<p>"As far as checking out her bio, it's not all that surprising to me that people attending those colleges in the mid-70s didn't realize she was not a fellow graduate. After all, there were never any specific graduation dates given, as far as I know. Also, it's not uncommon for women to change their names due to short-lived marriages. "</p>
<p>As someone who is from Schenectady, and whose mom had a minor administrative position at Union College during the period that Jones shoud have been there if she was telling the truth, I know that it really would have been hard to fake being a student there or probably at most colleges.</p>
<p>Union is a relatively small college. It would be very easy for an alum to catch someone in a lie if they were misrepresenting themselves.</p>
<p>I know that many colleges publish alum directories every several years. These list women by their maiden and married names. Even if Jones last name is from an earlier marriage, her first name is unusual. It would be very easy to check to see if there's a Marilee listed there who's around her age who is from Albany, N.Y.</p>
<p>Knowing that she was MIT's admission dean, many ambitious alum may have also wished to establish connections with her, so would have checked to see if their paths crossed in college.</p>
<p>As for RPI, there were very few women who went ot that intitution when Jones alleged she went there. It also would be very easy, I'm sure, for an ordinary alum to verify whether she went there.</p>
<p>Wow -what a disappointment. The situation is astonishing.</p>
<p>Have you ever worked with someone who you suspected lied their resume? I have. I have no idea how one would go about verifying their degree status. With today's relative ease of access to databases, it ought to be a simple matter to verify someone's degree status.</p>
<p>Perhaps, to prevent future embarrasments like this, universities should offer this information online, not only for employers but for future spouses and others.</p>
<p>As for her outing, I would suspect a co-worker or someone who was passed up for a job or promotion because of her success. Those are the people she hurt, IMO.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why do so many people today want to grab the role of victim. Some MIT students seem to want to be cast that way. If there are victims they are the deserving students who were rejected because of the circus Ms. Jones made of the admissions process.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Because they want to assure themselves that they belong to MIT.</p>
<p>I went to a liberal arts college much smaller than Union (about one-third the size) and I certainly didn't know everyone who attended who was a year ahead of me or a year behind me, let alone know everyone who was a grad student at the time I was an undergrad. I've certainly met people in later life who overlapped with me at my small college but whom I didn't know at the time.</p>
<p>Ms. Jones' biographical entries are all very vague as to which degrees she earned in which subjects at which colleges in exactly what years. </p>
<p>Not all alumnae are conscientious about keeping their colleges informed about changes in names when they marry. (They may not be interested in staying on the mailing list, for whatever reason.) Marilee has also been described as a "torch singer" in clubs--people might have thought she was taking a non-traditional part-time route through college over an extended period of time. And some people at RPI might actually remember having been in class with her and not realized that she never finished a degree there. And it's entirely possible she adopted "Marilee" as a stage name during her singing career and continued to use it socially and professionally afterwards, even though her educational records were under some first name she disliked (e.g., Phoebe, as I previously noted.)</p>
<p>Lest anyone think that UVA was overly harsh in dealing with the students in question in your post 421, I will point out that there is a single-sanction honor system in effect there. It is part of the culture and tradition, and everyone is made well aware of the consequences as part of first-year orientation. Anyone who is convicted by the Honor Committee of lying, cheating or stealing is expelled. Back in the day, they made us sign the following pledge on all important assignments and exams: "On my honor as a student, I have neither given nor received aid on this paper." Way back in the day (before coeds), it was "On my honor as a gentleman..."</p>
<p>I agree that their actions were less heinous than Ms. Jones' but it would be possible to get expelled from UVA, for example, for using a crib sheet on a single question of a test that was explicitly stated to be closed-book.</p>