<p>How can anyone expect a rejected seventeen year old kid to accept the integrity of a process that was presided over by a woman who pulled a stunt like this? Whether he or she would have been accepted or not this young person leaves the process feeling he or she was denied a fair shake. This leads to the kind of cynicism that makes one feel free to tell blatant lies on an application. Perhaps we now have a cycle of cynicisnm and dishonesty.
One thing is for sure, Ms. Jones was a cynic masqueradeing as an idealist.</p>
<p>After graduate school, I worked as a post-doctoral research associate for a professor who was a pathological liar. He just made up different stories about his credentials and experiences that were totally false. He was a good friend and professional colleague of my doctoral advisor, but my advisor was unaware that this man was a liar. Unlike Marilee Jones (apparently), he was difficult to work for and also was very vindictive against anyone who left his lab group for another position. I was fortunate in that my husband was unable to find a job in the area where I was working and we were thus living apart for the one year I worked there. For that reason, he did not hold it against me when I left or try to take revenge on me for leaving (as he did to others). </p>
<p>For example, one of the other post-doctoral researchers, "Juan", was an engineer from another country and took an industrial job in his field when he finally received his green card (as he could only work in the post-doctoral job with his student visa). He was one of the most honest people I have ever met in my life. When our despicable boss saw Juan's doctoral advisor at a conference, he lied and said it was a shame that he had to fire Juan, but Juan had been caught using the university's computers to write checks to himself. The advisor knew that it was impossible that Juan would do this and sought out Juan to tell him about the falsehoods. Juan contacted the university where we had worked and demanded an apology. Our boss would only say that he was sorry that there had been a "misunderstanding" about what he had said. </p>
<p>I was quite young at the time all of this happened and much less experienced than I am now, and I was so distraught when I left that lab that I was terrified for a long time to tell my advisor that the friend he had sent me to was a liar and a terrible person. I finally (after several months) told him, but it was very traumatic for me and I was afraid he would not believe me.</p>
<p>Another person in the lab was a female technician who had been with him for a long time and would never speak against him (unlike the rest of us). Many years later, I saw her at a conference. She had finally left and was working somewhere else, and she spoke vehemently against him. I think she was terrified to break away for years because of fear that he would somehow take revenge on her, but she finally did successfully. </p>
<p>This happened about 24 years ago, and I have not thought about it recently, but it still upsets me to think about it and write about it.</p>
<p>EDIT: I just thought of something "Juan" (who was from a Spanish-speaking country) used to say when we were discussing our boss, which may be relevant to this thread. He was a little older and more experienced that I was, and I can still hear him saying this in his charming accent: "I have known guys like this many times before. He is like a rotten apple hanging on a tree. Eventually they all fall and go splat!!!!" (or something like that :) )</p>
<p>I should add that this guy was very well known in his field, had many grants, and served on numerous national committees, etc. I think some people in our field knew his act, but many others who were his peers as leaders in our field did not, and somehow he managed to keep getting away with this stuff for many, many years.</p>
<p>BassDad,
I don't think UVa was overly harsh - I am just saying that Marilee Jones actions also warrant harsh consequences for her, regardless of her accomplishments while she worked at MIT.</p>
<p>" 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. ...</p>
<p>Marilee has also been described as a "torch singer" in clubs"</p>
<p>I'm not suggesting that everyone who attended Union around the time when she alleged to have been a student would have known her, but it would have been easy for people to have tracked her down or to find people who knew her. The fact, too, that she was a torch singer in a local nightclub (if that actually is true) would have made her even easier to identify including the fact that she was from Albany (if that was true!).</p>
<p>I'm also surprised that the alumni office didn't want to do an article about her for the alum magazine. She would have been one of their most prominent alum, also one to bring back for awards, etc. I would also have thought that female alums would have been lobbying for her to get some recognition.</p>
<p>Since her husband was a Union College grad, I'd also expect that he'd have friends and associates who would have been alum who'd have read about his wife's alleged connection with their college.</p>
<p>I am convinced that more than a few people would have stumbled into recognizing the lies in her background, but hadn't bothered to notify MIT.</p>
<p>Agreed. I was just pointing out the circumstances for anyone who may not have known about the UVA honor system.</p>
<p>Saw the film"Hoax" last week. Maybe Howard Hughes came back from the dead and spilled the beans on Ms. Jones.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Not all alumnae are conscientious about keeping their colleges informed about changes in names when they marry.
[/quote]
My first degree is in my maiden name and a subsequent degree is in my married name. My husband and I each have two degrees from different universities, and we have had three major, cross country and international moves. We now live 3,000 miles away from the town where we met. Yet each of our colleges has managed to track us down, and we receive requests for donations along with alumni material regularly. We even get phone calls from current students during fund-raising drives, and the college where I receive my first degree now addresses my material to me "First-name:maiden-name:married-name," although I've never notified them of my name change. Even my sorority has managed to keep track of me. So I find it hard to believe that her deception was so difficult to track, especially given the public nature of her work.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Very well said!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ms. Jones would have been the final reader on my son's application to MIT
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I remembered an MIT blog post saying that Marilee Jones generally has a last read on the files of all admitted applicants. Here is the exact wording I found in an MIT blog entry written two years ago: </p>
<p>
[quote=Matt McGann, MIT admissions blogger]
You might ask, so selection is over, why can't I have my decision? What happens now? Well, as you've read, there is randomness built into our admissions process, from the reading to the selection subcommittees. The final step ensures consistency and fairness: all of the decisions are reviewed by a small team lead by Dean Marilee Jones. The vast majority of decisions from the selection room will be upheld; some decisions will be changed (one way or the other) if they seem inconsistent with the process. This is a good thing for you, one more way that we make sure there are no "mistakes," and that everything is appropriately considered.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>On another blog entry of Matt's, I saw this post by Ben Jones which references a CC post. </p>
<p>
<p>After than, 2 readers will read everything in your folder (yes, everything) and write individual summaries. Figure 25-45 minutes per reader, depending on the speed and experience of the reader and the size of the app.</p>
<p>Then selection committee, where different groups (each generally comprised of 2-3 admissions officers and sometimes a faculty member) will discuss the app for ~10 minutes each, guided by the two summaries (but able to access anything in the folder they want). If it's a clear admit, sometimes the group can admit, but generally an admitted app is seen by at least 2 groups and usually more like 3, even 4.</p>
<p>Then Marilee (Dean of Admissions) will personally review each and every admit (I don't know how long, prob 5-10 minutes) before approving the final decision.
</p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=1327184&postcount=1%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=1327184&postcount=1</a> </p>
<p>(This is the stickied FAQ thread in the MIT Forum.) </p>
<p>Bottom line: Marilee Jones has signed off on every admission decision at MIT for several years. All of which makes the recent revelations dismaying to the colleagues who trusted her and to the students who sought admission at MIT. MIT is blessed with a great group of applicants, and no one should feel bad about being admitted after coming forward and submitting an application--there was plenty of competition to get in. But, yeah, I feel for everyone connected with this process, and I wish MIT well in improving the leadership of the fine staff it already has in its admission office.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm also surprised that the alumni office didn't want to do an article about her for the alum magazine. She would have been one of their most prominent alum, also one to bring back for awards, etc. I would also have thought that female alums would have been lobbying for her to get some recognition.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would think so as well, and it's quite possible that this is actually what eventually led to her undoing.</p>
<p>The fact is that she never publicly posted her resume anywhere in the past, so far as I know. Her educational background was alluded to in various news articles in rather vague terms. I could easily imagine the RPI press office or alumni office seeing such an article, looking her up, and realizing that she was just a part-time non-matriculated student, and thinking--"Oh, the press gets things wrong all the time," and dismissing the thought of pursuing it further.</p>
<p>As far as the Union and Albany Medical College entries on her resume, those had not really been very prominent until this week. I have some familiarity with Albany Medical College, RPI, and Union, but I had never seen anything but the RPI affiliation mentioned in news articles about Marilee Jones until this week.</p>
<p>Even as late as last week, Molly posted that the "official word from the MIT admissions office was that Marilee had bachelors and masters degree from RPI," nothing about Union or Albany Medical College.</p>
<p>It appears there was something about those two schools mentioned in the dust jacket of her recent book, but I don't believe that information has been widely circulating for years.</p>
<p>It could also be that she took some "executive education" seminars at those places, which were not for credit and wouldn't be in the college registrar's database.</p>
<p>I think it's quite possible that publishing the information in her own book is what really did her in. Inaccuracies in newspaper reporting could easily be ascribed to sloppy reporters. An inaccuracy in her own co-authored book dust jacket, however, is something that would raise more eyebrows.</p>
<p>I find what Ms. Jones perpetuated to be appalling. Whether she was the world's best at her job or the world's worst is immaterial. Wouldn't we all like to have gotten our foot in the door or gotten ahead by being able to pretend that we had credentials or experience that were not earned? It is my hope that the majority of us humans have an internal moral code that we abide by and impart to our children. My son wouldn't even count community service hours if he couldn't remember the exact amount of hours he spent on that particular endeavor. How much tougher it is now to preach integrity to our next generation when someone has been able to circumvent these values, sucessfully, for so long in such a position of respect and power. Obviously these fictional degrees were not necessary for sucess as an admissions director, but the entire charade is astonishing in so many ways.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Then Marilee (Dean of Admissions) will personally review each and every admit (I don't know how long, prob 5-10 minutes) before approving the final decision.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Great!</p>
<p>My future was in safe hands.</p>
<p>From the MIT news/ Tech Talk of December 1997:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Ms. Jones, who holds the SB and SM in biology from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, came to MIT in 1978 as a graduate resident tutor at Burton House.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Somewhere along the way (you can google Jone's name and Albany) she started to list the Albany Medical affiliation as well. Very strange, though as they made no mention of it in the beginning, when she was first named dean of admissions. Her H is a grad of Union College from 1975 (that is the same year his wife was taking those part time nonmatriculating classes at RPI). He earned his masters and PhD at MIT and was a grad student there when Marilee started working at MIT. I have never seen any direct MIT reference to a degree from Union for her, although it's obvious that the claim was made at some point. </p>
<p>Good friends of mine who are Union grads told me today that that the Union College degree is an especially strange degree for Jones to have claimed, in that the very first class that allowed women to come all the way through was (I believe) the Class of 1977. 1972 was the first time that women were allowed to even attend and then as transfer students only. If Jones had actually gone to classes at RPI in 1975, it doesn't add up - she would have been at Union at a time when there were a handful (or NO) women. </p>
<p>I have also read that Jones is from Albany and worked as an EMT there(perhaps that is where Albany Medical comes in - an EMT course taken there?). In addition, it's interesting that RPI, Union and SUNY- Albany all had (have?) a cross college exchange with one another...the better to confuse people if there were ever a question, perhaps.</p>
<p>I too, have wondered about the alumni offices at the schools she has claimed to be from. We've been doing the college tour with our D, and every school we have visited proudly mentions all the prominent alumni who have attended. It boggles the mind that nobody at RPI ever questioned this back in 1997-98.</p>
<p>"Bottom line: Marilee Jones has signed off on every admission decision at MIT for several years. All of which makes the recent revelations dismaying to the colleagues who trusted her and to the students who sought admission at MIT."</p>
<p>Great comment. This is the bottom line for those who speculated that she didn't even review the files. One person, who was not admitted to MIT, thought that they would challenge their denial based on this revelation. Although it may not get them anywhere, you can empathize with someone who had worked terribly hard to get into MIT and have their application denied by someone who never knew what is what like to have worked that hard. How could Ms Jones understand these applicants when she herself never had the personal discipline to even finish her baccalaureate degree? In fact, she may have resented higher achieving individuals because she did not have any of her own academic achievements. Who knows for sure? I am sure Freud could tie this to something else completely.</p>
<p>I see references to people defending Jones, or being her apologists, etc. </p>
<p>I have been following this thread from the beginning. Except for a few posts at the very outset, when it wasn't so clear what she had done, I haven't seen a single post excusing her, or suggesting that her immediate resignation wasn't justified, or defending her judgment on this in any way. I and others have speculated on what she thought she was doing, and I suppose I have tried to be sympathetic there, but it was in the context of understanding her pathology as a fraud.</p>
<p>In other words, no one, but no one here has defended or excused Jones. As far as I can tell, there is complete unanimity on condemning what she did. It is practically libelous to suggest otherwise.</p>
<p>Sewbusy, your post #471 and also something Berurah posted earlier really retired for me forever any sympathy I might have been able to have for Marilee Jones. </p>
<p>I haven't made it to college yet, and, I am very successful professionally, and as such am invited to speak, often in front of large audiences of other professionals. But there's always one VERY embarrassing part of this - the part where they ask for my bio. My peer group always has law degrees, ph.d's, masters and sometimes multiple advanced degrees. I'm a high school drop out, by very strict definition (I do actually have a high school diploma, earned from an accredited correspondence school that still exists today). </p>
<p>So when asked for my bio, my response is to stall as long as possible and hope they forget - this works if someone just needs it for a conference book, etc.. But if my back is to the wall, for example if I'm being introduced as the speaker, we deliver my bio, crammed full of professional stuff, and intentionally ending at the bottom of the page, so that it appears that there is no room left for an "education" section. It's SO embarassing - humiliating actually - to have no formal college education. I try not to think about it and thankfully no one has yet asked directly "where did you go to college" or "why isn't your education listed" etc. But as uncomfortable as I get over this, never, ever, ever would I even consider lying about it, or inventing a credential that I did not earn and do not have.</p>
<p>Some day, I absolutely WILL go to college, and when the day comes that I can finally add a college degree to my bio, it's going to be a very awesome day. </p>
<p>That's the real loss to Marilee; she deprived herself of that very special joy of wanting something very badly, waiting until the circumstances were right to go get it, and the thrill of finally achieving it, and the realization that it was all hers, and that no one could take it away from her.</p>
<p>JHS: Early on, this was written up by those who worked with her, as a "youthful mistake." (Don't remember which post # it is, but it's on this thread.) In fact, I do think that is "excusing" her to quite an extent. Her first "youthful mistake" in this matter was when she was in her 20's, lying on her resume to secure a clerical job. (Totally unnecessary, by the way, since this first job didn't even require an undergraduate degree--much less a masters.) After that, up until she was in her 50's, she continued to embellish her credentials. That's more than a "youthful" one-time "mistake," in my opinion. In fact, she was in her 40's when she interviewed and was hired in her most recent high-level position. So, referring to her actions as a "youthful mistake" is certainly questionable and does, in fact, excuse her.</p>
<p>Below is bio info on the person whom Jones had replaced as dean of admissions at MIT. She must have had a heckuva lot of charisma to have replaced him after he resigned to go to U Chicago. I still find it incredible that her credentials weren't scrutiinized despite her being an in-house promotion. She still had 59 rivals for the job. Most probably did have degrees from very prestigious places.</p>
<p>What I found amazing is that she never bothered to get a college degree. It really wouldn't have been that hard particularly since she started out in a clerical position.</p>
<p>Latetoschool,
One of the high school drop-outs whom I knew was on the Washington Post's editorial board, was one of the questioners in a presidential debate, then bought his own newspaper in a large Calif. city, and then won a Pulitzer Prize. Like you, he never lied about his background. As your own experience demonstrates, it is very possible to make it very far while being honest.</p>
<p>From U of Chicago's web site:</p>
<p>"Behnke received a B.A with Honors from Amherst College and an M.A. in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to Chicago, Behnke served as Dean of Admissions at MIT for twelve years. Prior to MIT, he served as Dean of Admissions at Tufts University for ten years and as Associate Dean of Admissions at Amherst College for five years. During his years at Amherst, he was also a Lecturer in American Studies and served for one year as Dean of Freshmen. Mr. Behnke has also taught history and mathematics on the secondary school level, in the Upward Bound Program, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Sierra Leone, West Africa. Other administrative assignments have been as Education Director of the Northern Educational Service, a community action agency, and as Founder/Director of the Hillhouse Day Camp for Creative Arts. "</p>
<p>Latetoschool-
Thank you for your eloquent post. I am sure you will graduate from college one day! You can probably relate to this story better than most of us - imagine how angry you would feel if you knew that someone else in your field did not have a college degree and falsified this information, and was being introduced as a graduate of XXXX, while you were, of course, being totally honest and feeling embarrassed by your lack of credentials!!!!<br>
I should also add that you should be very proud of yourself for your achievements and advancement despite having less formal education than many others in your field!</p>
<p>"Good friends of mine who are Union grads told me today that that the Union College degree is an especially strange degree for Jones to have claimed, in that the very first class that allowed women to come all the way through was (I believe) the Class of 1977. 1972 was the first time that women were allowed to even attend and then as transfer students only. If Jones had actually gone to classes at RPI in 1975, it doesn't add up - she would have been at Union at a time when there were a handful (or NO) women. "</p>
<p>The first Union College class that allowed women to go all the way through, I am virtually sure was the class that graduated in 1972 or 1973. My mother actually helped select them. (Incidentally, Mom was a secretary at Union and had only an associates degree. She was invited to help with admissions because Union also was trying to expand its diversity, and Mom was probably the only black woman on Union's faculty or staff with the possible exception of some domestic workers).</p>
<p>Your friends are right in that there were so relatively few women on Union's campus that Jones would have been remembered by many.</p>