UMC suburban college student lied about background to become prestigious Rhodes Scholar

[Anonymous]

Her moms story is that she was helping her get gum out of her hair, she jerked and fell down 3 steps.

Days later her school send her to the hospital and she stays almost a month with injuries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Wow. They're probably both mentally ill, unfortunately. Very tough case.

Nothing I've read indicates the daughter is mentally ill. Her mother and the school abused her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t doubt that her mom is a total piece of work. But there is a big difference between being the child of a radiologist snd attending private school - making her someone who had multiple examples of academic and financial success in her peer group, school and family during her entire childhood — and someone who was plucked out of foster care by Penn after a lifetime surrounded by people with GEDs and a crap high school. Come on now.

You don't believe that rich people can perpetrate horrific abuse on their kids? It must have been really bad for CPS to take the daughter out of the home permanently.

Yes I do. Don’t be simplistic. She could be a rich kid who suffered terrible abuse by terrible parents. Which is awful. What she is not is someone who had no real access to elite education and no chance at a significant career and no books at the broken down local school until Penn spotted her and swooped in. I’m talking about the class issue.

She was in foster care! That generally means zero parental support. Do you really think her abusive mom sat down to talk about college applications and to help her with the process?!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Wow. They're probably both mentally ill, unfortunately. Very tough case.

Nothing I've read indicates the daughter is mentally ill. Her mother and the school abused her.

Penn PR is working overtime in this thread to bury these facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Wow. They're probably both mentally ill, unfortunately. Very tough case.

Nothing I've read indicates the daughter is mentally ill. Her mother and the school abused her.

That can clearly make you mentally ill.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Honest question to all the posters thinking this child is entirely justified in lying to gain another step on the ladder of prestige-is this someone you would enthusiastically hire & promote within your organization?

Yes I would. She was a young high school student at the time without family support. Desperate people do desperate things. Once she got the chance she proved herself by receiving exceptionally high marks over 4 years at Penn state who recommended her to the Rhodes committee.

But she's a relentless liar who invents her own truths and she is not in politics. May I ask what industry you are in?

Her story largely checks out. Did you read the full article?

I read the article. Her story didn't check out. The DA said he dropped the charges against the mom and the more he looked into it the less clear the story became. Whatever. She's not low-income or first generation. At least the Rhodes Committee didn't think so as they defined it.

She was hospitalized for almost a month, but sure her mom didn’t do anything wrong.

and the state must have just placed her in foster care for funsies!

I can't help thinking this kid pushed the narrative to show mom who's the boss. She's obviously intelligent & has foresight & I'm really doubting there there was no other way to handle whatever stresses there were in her UMC home. She also supposedly had a difficult relationship with the dad (divorced), but no other details on that.

This post is disgusting. You need therapy. Let me guess, you were abusive to a family member and justify it like this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Wow. They're probably both mentally ill, unfortunately. Very tough case.

Nothing I've read indicates the daughter is mentally ill. Her mother and the school abused her.

That can clearly make you mentally ill.

You are a horrible person. Horrible. Are you her mother?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All these posters passing judgment when I highly doubt most, if not all, have ever been in foster care or have any experience with the foster care system.

My two siblings were adopted out of foster care. The life long trauma they have carried around that put them in foster care has never gone away. And neither of them came from low income households.

Just because this girl isn't from a dirt poor family situation doesn't mean she had any access to money. For her to be in the hospital at all, much less a month, is alarming. There is a documented history of abuse. She had no father in her life. I have no idea where the grandparents were. Her mother sounds like a monster. Sorry if her physical injuries aren't bad enough for DCUM. Unreal. You think there wasn't some mental or verbal abuse added in there. She was just pushed down the stairs once? NBD?! It also sounds like in high school she was emancipated or on her own.

I cannot understand the apologists on this thread. Her abuse doesn't sounds bad enough? She probably wasn't poor enough? Shame her. Ridicule her. Drag her name through the mud. Make her pay.

You posters are horrible. Her mother sounds horrible. And I don't believe for one second that the schools didn't take her story and run with it because it gives nice feel good vibes (look what an inspiration, we help poor people and foster kids). They used her and when it was convenient just tossed her aside.

The school didn't toss McKenzie aside because it was convenient. It was because she helped uncover a dangerous situation at the school that led to a student dying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:She's not first gen by my standards but it seems messed up for Penn to state that they consider "first at an elite institution" first gen and then say that her use of the designation is categorically untrue. They should have left the designation alone, and it seems like they introduced confusion in order to have it both ways (claim "look at all our [artificially inflated] first gen students" in literature, but then call those same kids connivers for going with Penn's definition if they want to punish them).

Of course Penn wants a more inclusive definition, that way on their stats they have a higher percentage of "first generation" students. The more the merrier to them, because it serves their interests.

Right, but my point is then they turned around and bashed her for using their creative definition. They said it was "clearly untrue" that she was first gen, when they're the ones that made up the bogus definition of first gen themselves. They get to use the wiggle room to aggrandize their institution and also as a cudgel to call her a liar. That's gross.

Have you actually read the essay in question? It turns out to be a fantastical piece of writing full of details not backed up by facts. Maybe she's just a delusional loon & not a cunning, conniving sociopath, fine. Is that really the caliber of person to knowingly send off to Oxford?

Who are you and why do you hate her?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I lean towards the kid having some sort of sociopathic mindset & whatever happened with her mother has been highly, even premeditatively, worked to her advantage. She's obviously intelligent, driven, ambitious & as described in at least one article, charismatic. (HS class president) It's her responses to being interrogated as a liar in her Rhodes application that are the tell. Stonewall defiance that the extensive lies she committed to paper are anything but the truth (well her personal truth, whatever the F that means). She lied. Period. Is this what any Ivy education allows one to do???

I also think she manipulated the people she had contact with during that hospital phase & later at Penn after being called out, and worked her perspective to sympathetic advantage. This whole scenario just doesn't pass the smell test. She was a teen wanting to be the boss of her life & figured out a way. She certainly isn't the first in the history of the world to do whatever she though it would take to achieve that.

Hi MacKenzie's mom. You are mentally ill.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lean towards the kid having some sort of sociopathic mindset & whatever happened with her mother has been highly, even premeditatively, worked to her advantage. She's obviously intelligent, driven, ambitious & as described in at least one article, charismatic. (HS class president) It's her responses to being interrogated as a liar in her Rhodes application that are the tell. Stonewall defiance that the extensive lies she committed to paper are anything but the truth (well her personal truth, whatever the F that means). She lied. Period. Is this what any Ivy education allows one to do???

I also think she manipulated the people she had contact with during that hospital phase & later at Penn after being called out, and worked her perspective to sympathetic advantage. This whole scenario just doesn't pass the smell test. She was a teen wanting to be the boss of her life & figured out a way. She certainly isn't the first in the history of the world to do whatever she though it would take to achieve that.

Hi MacKenzie's mom. You are mentally ill.

No, I agree with the PP. She appeared to be a happy, involved kid at a prestigious private high school. I totally agree that something bad went down with her mom, but whatever happened doesn't seem like it would naturally lead to being hospitalized for a month. There must be more mental/emotional issues here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lean towards the kid having some sort of sociopathic mindset & whatever happened with her mother has been highly, even premeditatively, worked to her advantage. She's obviously intelligent, driven, ambitious & as described in at least one article, charismatic. (HS class president) It's her responses to being interrogated as a liar in her Rhodes application that are the tell. Stonewall defiance that the extensive lies she committed to paper are anything but the truth (well her personal truth, whatever the F that means). She lied. Period. Is this what any Ivy education allows one to do???

I also think she manipulated the people she had contact with during that hospital phase & later at Penn after being called out, and worked her perspective to sympathetic advantage. This whole scenario just doesn't pass the smell test. She was a teen wanting to be the boss of her life & figured out a way. She certainly isn't the first in the history of the world to do whatever she though it would take to achieve that.

Hi MacKenzie's mom. You are mentally ill.

No, I agree with the PP. She appeared to be a happy, involved kid at a prestigious private high school. I totally agree that something bad went down with her mom, but whatever happened doesn't seem like it would naturally lead to being hospitalized for a month. There must be more mental/emotional issues here.

She was in the pediatric intensive care unit and you are just trying to smear her. There is an aggressive smear campaign going on here and you are evil.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The power of victimhood.

+1 This. Victims are the new heroes. Pathetic.

Not at all. You stink.


The initial criminal complaint in 2014 includes a statement from a detective who noted that Fierceton was treated at a hospital for bruising and swelling that Fierceton claimed her mother caused by pushing her down the stairs. She also described an incident the previous day where her mother pushed her into a wall and an incident 7 months earlier where she slammed her face on a metal table, causing black eyes. Fierceton showed the detective a photograph of her injuries.

Original PP here. My point is broader than this single incident. I'm not doubting that the student was a victim of abuse, or suffered through hurtful circumstances. My point is that our society now has an unhealthy fetish with being a victim, as if that is a source of moral virtue, to be worn like a badge of honor, paraded and celebrated in the spotlight. Regardless of where you place the fault, whether it is with the student or the admissions officers - someone embellished the victim narrative. Why did they do this? Because in our society, being a victim is power, and this is not healthy.

This goes back to Louis L'Amour if not further. Americans have always been obsessed with the idea of pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, the self-made man, making something out of nothing. Of course to be fair, the idea that it's both brand new and contemptible because your kid doesn't benefit from the narrative is also pretty classically American.

False. Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is about overcoming life's challenges without making excuses for yourself, rather than enumerating and celebrating those challenges. What was celebrated was the triumph, the success. Any hardship faced by the person was viewed as not all that relevant because everyone has their challenges and is expected to help themselves before asking others for help.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lean towards the kid having some sort of sociopathic mindset & whatever happened with her mother has been highly, even premeditatively, worked to her advantage. She's obviously intelligent, driven, ambitious & as described in at least one article, charismatic. (HS class president) It's her responses to being interrogated as a liar in her Rhodes application that are the tell. Stonewall defiance that the extensive lies she committed to paper are anything but the truth (well her personal truth, whatever the F that means). She lied. Period. Is this what any Ivy education allows one to do???

I also think she manipulated the people she had contact with during that hospital phase & later at Penn after being called out, and worked her perspective to sympathetic advantage. This whole scenario just doesn't pass the smell test. She was a teen wanting to be the boss of her life & figured out a way. She certainly isn't the first in the history of the world to do whatever she though it would take to achieve that.

Hi MacKenzie's mom. You are mentally ill.

No, I agree with the PP. She appeared to be a happy, involved kid at a prestigious private high school. I totally agree that something bad went down with her mom, but whatever happened doesn't seem like it would naturally lead to being hospitalized for a month. There must be more mental/emotional issues here.

Because never in history has anyone, much less a child, faked a happy persona and family life while the reality at home was bad, abusive or worse.

WTAF is wrong with people on this thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The power of victimhood.

+1 This. Victims are the new heroes. Pathetic.

Not at all. You stink.


The initial criminal complaint in 2014 includes a statement from a detective who noted that Fierceton was treated at a hospital for bruising and swelling that Fierceton claimed her mother caused by pushing her down the stairs. She also described an incident the previous day where her mother pushed her into a wall and an incident 7 months earlier where she slammed her face on a metal table, causing black eyes. Fierceton showed the detective a photograph of her injuries.

Original PP here. My point is broader than this single incident. I'm not doubting that the student was a victim of abuse, or suffered through hurtful circumstances. My point is that our society now has an unhealthy fetish with being a victim, as if that is a source of moral virtue, to be worn like a badge of honor, paraded and celebrated in the spotlight. Regardless of where you place the fault, whether it is with the student or the admissions officers - someone embellished the victim narrative. Why did they do this? Because in our society, being a victim is power, and this is not healthy.

This goes back to Louis L'Amour if not further. Americans have always been obsessed with the idea of pulling yourself up from your bootstraps, the self-made man, making something out of nothing. Of course to be fair, the idea that it's both brand new and contemptible because your kid doesn't benefit from the narrative is also pretty classically American.

False. Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps is about overcoming life's challenges without making excuses for yourself, rather than enumerating and celebrating those challenges. What was celebrated was the triumph, the success. Any hardship faced by the person was viewed as not all that relevant because everyone has their challenges and is expected to help themselves before asking others for help.

LOL sure. This is why no one ever uses the phrase "rags to riches", just "riches at the end and nobody GAF about your backstory, whiner."