MIT Admissions Dean resigns -resume fraud

<p>Liability insurance will be a part of the remedy.</p>

<p>Here's a blurb from a conference that was scheduled for next September (the National Association for College Admissions Counseling):</p>

<p>"Dr. Marilee Jones, Ph.D., is the Dean of Admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and has served on several professional boards including the College Board and the Women in Engineering Programs Advisory Network.</p>

<p>"As a national spokesperson on the changes in today’s college admission climate, speaking out against the pressures it induces in both students and parents, she has been featured on CBS, ABC and National Public Radio and profiled in such print publications as USA Today, the Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.</p>

<p>"She is the coauthor of Less Stress, More Success: Guiding Your
Child Through the College Admissions Process and Beyond.</p>

<p>"Dr. Jones is the recipient of MIT’s highest award for administrators, the MIT Excellence Award for Leading Change, as well as the Dean for Undergraduate Education Infinite Mile Award for Leadership.</p>

<p>"Dr. Jones is a scientist with degrees in biology and chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Albany Medical College.</p>

<p>"Last year, Dr. Jones experienced the college admissions process not as a Dean of Admissions, but as a parent."</p>

<p>From an article published in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune earlier this year:</p>

<p>"But Marilee Jones, admissions director at MIT, says it's not that important. She uses herself as an example. She's a graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute -- an outstanding university, but not MIT. 'You don't need to go to those schools to lead a good life or be a leader,' she said. "You can succeed by going to any school.'"</p>

<p>From Marilee's blog:</p>

<p>"We have been criticized this year for the honesty of the blogs, for trying to create more transparency in the admissions process... I'm proud to represent a place where truth is the whole point, messy or not."</p>

<p>Another entry from Marilee's blog: "...how lucky I am to work with them, to work at MIT, at this remarkable place where truth matters more than perception, where light matters more than smoke and mirrors."</p>

<p>Greybeard, a tad bit obsessive about this are we?</p>

<p>Amazing how people will believe anything if those in the right position say it.</p>

<p>This is the woman who got to decide who got into MIT and who didn't? This is the woman who was in charge of admissions to an elite insitution? You'd think someone would have at least checked up on those claims before she was put in such a position.</p>

<p>the_prestige, how are those comments 'obsessive'?</p>

<p>Here she is talking about admissions at National Public Radio...</p>

<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7383744%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7383744&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This put a whole new light on the "getting into MIT isn't eveything" attitude.</p>

<p>She's so funny. How can she make such statements as Greybeard listed above without feeling a tint of guilt? You can't possibly say thos things if you truly feel bad about your "mistake" you made years ago.... therefore shame on you!</p>

<p>I think she deserves to be criticized upon... she was lying every single minute of the day. This is definitely NOT a mistake. it was very intentional so she should be very sorry for this, especially since she was so influencial and spoke not only for herself, but as a representative, a figure of the whole education system.</p>

<p>she is a big fat liar, and a hypocrite.
i'm sure there are a lot more people who could have done the job as well as, if not better, than she did if they were given an opportunity.
There are just so many talented people with so little spaces.</p>

<p>hmm... i do seem a little obsessive but no, I have never applied to MIT before.</p>

<p>How ironic! Yet, MIT will reject highly qualified students when this woman didn't even have a college degree! IMO, MIT should rescind all rejections in light of the fact that this woman is a fraud</p>

<p>This also brings to mind a situation with which I'm familiar: I know of someone with a crappy undrergrd background who brown-nosed and got himself hooked up with an influental network of people - and today this person is making megabucks and heads a research institution. Just shows, it's not what you know, it's who you know....</p>

<p>It was about time. She has actually caused considerable damage to MIT over the past years by rejecting several exceptionally qualified applicants while admitting others based on questionable subjective criteria.</p>

<p>She's pretentious and I really doubt whether she truly regrets what she did. This is a woman who has been preaching truth when she herself is a liar. I can only assume that whatever comes out of her mouth is a lie.</p>

<p>NO, I think its less about hypocrisy and lying than it is about her background and being working class and landing this job in entry level admissions...and doing a GREAT JOB..and so good at it, they promoted her over and over.....she didnt need a college degree to get the original job....likely..but somehow, being insecure and perhaps needing the job....she lied then...and felt trapped by it.....and never corrected it. Its very sad. Should she have been fired? Absolutely. But I feel very sorry about it, because she was a force for good things in college admissions, trying to make it more sane (though obviously the process is so insane, that her work was not catching on...).</p>

<p>I wish college admissions was clearer and more forthright: just disclose the process. Say for example: We dont take people below this gpa or this SAT. We "might" take an minority below that line for diversity reasons and affirmative action, or we might take a white person below those figures if they come from a disadvantaged background. But generally we favor prep school kids with high scores." Or whatever is the program. Just spell it out and be truthful and let people make their own decisions about making an application. Instead of all the baloney they spew so they can get "record applications" and then appear to be more exclusive by admitting a small percentage. Or by admitting legacy people or children of HUGE donors or children of celebrities etc. Admissions is not a democratic process. Its highly agenda driven and often unjust and unfair. SOME SCHOOLS are more fair in their admissions than others...or more truthful about their selectivity. But not all. I dont envy their jobs....picking between HIGHLY qualified kids, ALL OF WHOM would do well and bring something great to that school.....but being from Nebraska may be more in your favor than being from New Jersey.</p>

<p>Admissions cannot be an open process. Heavy duty social engineering is afoot and Marilee didnt buy in. So Marilee is gone. But she had vision and her lack of credentialing or grooming at the right schools might have had something to do with her fresh REAL SMART approach. Now the rest of the academic prima donnas can sleep well. She is gone and its a matter of time before a humorless prig is selected to replace her. This is so sad. Thanks for your post fried okra. It was 'heart warming' instead of 'stone throwing'</p>

<p>I am dumbfounded. It is ludicrous, the fact that a prestigious college did not even LOOK UP the stats to substantiate them. Impossible.</p>

<p>This is not a situation where someone fudged a few credentials 28 years ago. This is a situation where a woman did not even graduate from college let alone get a graduate degree and lied about it all. When she started in the admissions office almost three decades ago a college education was not needed for her entry level administrative job. However, she realized it was needed for any other job in admissions at MIT as she moved up the ladder, so she fabricated it all. We are not even talking about someone who just had a undergraduate degree and lied about getting a graduate one. We are talking about someone who never graduated from college. She attended one year of college in the 70's as a part time non matriculating student. Every day she worked at MIT she ran the risk of this being unconvered. All it would take is one of the schools she claimed to have attended to research how she did at the school as part of offering her an honorary degree, or for an interview. She lived every day a lie. And she choose to go in the public eye by writing books and doing tours across the country. She knew that high visibility could result in her being deemed to have lied about her credentials.
It is applaling for a Dean of Admissions at one of the best schools in the country to have lied about attending college or graduate school. MIT would never have named a Dean of Admissions who was not a college graduate.
To say that she misrepresented herself and could have corrected it long ago and did not is a falisy. She knew she could not correct it. To correct it would have mean she would lose her job. To say she misrepresented herself is to suggest that she said she had an a particular degree when she had another. To claim that she graduated from college and has two other graduate degrees is a sad lie</p>

<p>Sure Ms. Jones had to go. Absolutley. No question there. But the vitriol many seem to feel about her only says to me that she was right. People --kids and parents both --are just too damn concerned about where they go to college. Her basic point for years has been that a good life is better than a good colege. In fact its way better. That still stands whether she lied on her resume or not.</p>

<p>MIT grad checking in with my $0.02.</p>

<p>I find it greatly humorous that this individual was apparently quite good at her job.....from CNN...."...she received MIT's highest award for administrators, the "MIT Excellence Award for Leading Change." She was also the 2006 winner of the "Gordon Y Billard Award" given "for special service of outstanding merit" performed for the school".</p>

<p>What's the message here? Should we applaud her for successfully scaling the lofty heights of this bastion of academics without a degree? Or scorn her because she lied on her resume so long ago.....</p>