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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not only would high school tuition have been paid, September happens to be the same month QuestBridge apps are due. Maybe she stumbled upon QuestBridge, say on reddit or college confidential, and it got her thinking...

I recall stumbling upon those QuestBridge threads on college confidential and being amazed at the schools some of the kids were getting into.

I contend the entire thing was an admissions con. Her being class president tells us she was a striver long before gunning for a Rhodes. Her QuestBridge list likely had HYPS at the top, followed by the other Ivies.

What would her long term goal be? What would she get out of this that she couldn't get by just being a brilliant student?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not only would high school tuition have been paid, September happens to be the same month QuestBridge apps are due. Maybe she stumbled upon QuestBridge, say on reddit or college confidential, and it got her thinking...

I recall stumbling upon those QuestBridge threads on college confidential and being amazed at the schools some of the kids were getting into.

I contend the entire thing was an admissions con. Her being class president tells us she was a striver long before gunning for a Rhodes. Her QuestBridge list likely had HYPS at the top, followed by the other Ivies.

What would her long term goal be? What would she get out of this that she couldn't get by just being a brilliant student?

IVY ADMISSION DUH. Brilliant students don’t get into ivies every day. It isn’t a guarantee. Very well she could’ve been shut out, even as a top student/athlete/school leader, and ended up at a great school that was not an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not only would high school tuition have been paid, September happens to be the same month QuestBridge apps are due. Maybe she stumbled upon QuestBridge, say on reddit or college confidential, and it got her thinking...

I recall stumbling upon those QuestBridge threads on college confidential and being amazed at the schools some of the kids were getting into.

I contend the entire thing was an admissions con. Her being class president tells us she was a striver long before gunning for a Rhodes. Her QuestBridge list likely had HYPS at the top, followed by the other Ivies.

I agree the whole thing was a con, but it was a premeditated one. She applied for Questbridge 12 months after the incident. Incident is September of her JUNIOR year. Questbridge application was September of her SENIOR year.

What a ridiculous statement. So social services who removed her from her mother’s custody was in on the con? And the hospital which kept her for more than 3 weeks were both in on the con? Both of these professional decisions are very rare and speak to the fact that there were serious issues involved here, much of which we know little or nothing about.

As for her Questbridge application, the Director has reviewed her case and has said that her application would be approved as is if it were submitted again today. The allegation that her Questbridge application was a con is simply false.

It’s laugh out loud funny how people here repeatedly fancy themselves smarter and more astute than medical professionals, social services professionals, Questbridge professionals, and college professors, who are labeled in numerous posts as gullible and conned. Meanwhile internet trolls feed their egos by posturing here about a case in which they have no direct knowledge. Pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Sure, PP. It will all come out at trial, and won't everyone feel silly. Just a matter of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP

Okay, PP.


Doesn't change anything about the fabrications and lies. Let's wait until she takes this to trial and see what shakes out. She's an adult -- if she wants to air it all out and have her story tested and publicly evaluated for truth, she can do that.

I suspect the mother has plenty of evidence. What's shocking is that a doctor with one child couldn't control that one child. I suspect the mother got bad advice in the beginning.

Maybe she is still getting bad advice.

The mom probably had her own life and not very involved. I suspect she paid for the last year of private as you have to prepay.

Someone close to the girl if not the girl has been in this thread and repeatedly said the ritzy day school gave her a "full scholarship" for 12th grade. Her school is $30,000 a year. But then someone recently claimed she was in the foster system for two years. So did she get "full scholarships" for both 11th and 12th?

She pulled the stunt in September of her junior year. I assume she chose the time because the tuition (which her mother had paid as usual) had just become non refundable. And the person was arguing very carefully: they said she lived with foster families for two years. Mackenzie was in the foster system for less than a year, from the fall of her junior year until the August before her senior year. But she continued to live with her last foster family throughout her senior year of high school. So: one year in the foster system, one year of scholarship, two years “living with foster families.”

With Mackenzie, you have to parse every word.

Agree she stretched the truth, but if not she probably would not have gotten a scholarship and she was in a no win situation in terms of college if they look at parents income and parents wouldn't pay. Two years in foster care is no picnic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP

Okay, PP.


Doesn't change anything about the fabrications and lies. Let's wait until she takes this to trial and see what shakes out. She's an adult -- if she wants to air it all out and have her story tested and publicly evaluated for truth, she can do that.

I suspect the mother has plenty of evidence. What's shocking is that a doctor with one child couldn't control that one child. I suspect the mother got bad advice in the beginning.

Maybe she is still getting bad advice.

The mom probably had her own life and not very involved. I suspect she paid for the last year of private as you have to prepay.

Someone close to the girl if not the girl has been in this thread and repeatedly said the ritzy day school gave her a "full scholarship" for 12th grade. Her school is $30,000 a year. But then someone recently claimed she was in the foster system for two years. So did she get "full scholarships" for both 11th and 12th?

She pulled the stunt in September of her junior year. I assume she chose the time because the tuition (which her mother had paid as usual) had just become non refundable. And the person was arguing very carefully: they said she lived with foster families for two years. Mackenzie was in the foster system for less than a year, from the fall of her junior year until the August before her senior year. But she continued to live with her last foster family throughout her senior year of high school. So: one year in the foster system, one year of scholarship, two years “living with foster families.”

With Mackenzie, you have to parse every word.

Agree she stretched the truth, but if not she probably would not have gotten a scholarship and she was in a no win situation in terms of college if they look at parents income and parents wouldn't pay. Two years in foster care is no picnic.

But let's be clear -- it was a year or less actually in "foster care," unless you are counting overlapping from fall of one year to summer of the next as two years, just because there are numerically two separate years bridged.

Foster care lasts until the 18th birthday. She was already past her seventeenth birthday.

I don't mean to say that any time in foster care is an easy step, but this story has so much manipulation and parsing of language very carefully to drive it, that I don't want to keep perpetuating inaccuracies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP

Okay, PP.


Doesn't change anything about the fabrications and lies. Let's wait until she takes this to trial and see what shakes out. She's an adult -- if she wants to air it all out and have her story tested and publicly evaluated for truth, she can do that.

I suspect the mother has plenty of evidence. What's shocking is that a doctor with one child couldn't control that one child. I suspect the mother got bad advice in the beginning.

Maybe she is still getting bad advice.

The mom probably had her own life and not very involved. I suspect she paid for the last year of private as you have to prepay.

Someone close to the girl if not the girl has been in this thread and repeatedly said the ritzy day school gave her a "full scholarship" for 12th grade. Her school is $30,000 a year. But then someone recently claimed she was in the foster system for two years. So did she get "full scholarships" for both 11th and 12th?

She pulled the stunt in September of her junior year. I assume she chose the time because the tuition (which her mother had paid as usual) had just become non refundable. And the person was arguing very carefully: they said she lived with foster families for two years. Mackenzie was in the foster system for less than a year, from the fall of her junior year until the August before her senior year. But she continued to live with her last foster family throughout her senior year of high school. So: one year in the foster system, one year of scholarship, two years “living with foster families.”

With Mackenzie, you have to parse every word.

Agree she stretched the truth, but if not she probably would not have gotten a scholarship and she was in a no win situation in terms of college if they look at parents income and parents wouldn't pay. Two years in foster care is no picnic.

But let's be clear -- it was a year or less actually in "foster care," unless you are counting overlapping from fall of one year to summer of the next as two years, just because there are numerically two separate years bridged.

Foster care lasts until the 18th birthday. She was already past her seventeenth birthday.

I don't mean to say that any time in foster care is an easy step, but this story has so much manipulation and parsing of language very carefully to drive it, that I don't want to keep perpetuating inaccuracies.

Like I said, she'd have made a great lawyer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not only would high school tuition have been paid, September happens to be the same month QuestBridge apps are due. Maybe she stumbled upon QuestBridge, say on reddit or college confidential, and it got her thinking...

I recall stumbling upon those QuestBridge threads on college confidential and being amazed at the schools some of the kids were getting into.

I contend the entire thing was an admissions con. Her being class president tells us she was a striver long before gunning for a Rhodes. Her QuestBridge list likely had HYPS at the top, followed by the other Ivies.

I agree the whole thing was a con, but it was a premeditated one. She applied for Questbridge 12 months after the incident. Incident is September of her JUNIOR year. Questbridge application was September of her SENIOR year.

What a ridiculous statement. So social services who removed her from her mother’s custody was in on the con? And the hospital which kept her for more than 3 weeks were both in on the con? Both of these professional decisions are very rare and speak to the fact that there were serious issues involved here, much of which we know little or nothing about.

As for her Questbridge application, the Director has reviewed her case and has said that her application would be approved as is if it were submitted again today. The allegation that her Questbridge application was a con is simply false.

It’s laugh out loud funny how people here repeatedly fancy themselves smarter and more astute than medical professionals, social services professionals, Questbridge professionals, and college professors, who are labeled in numerous posts as gullible and conned. Meanwhile internet trolls feed their egos by posturing here about a case in which they have no direct knowledge. Pathetic.

Hello Mackenzie.
Social services may have been forced to take her, if she used the correct lies, framed carefully.
The hospital stay has been purposely given the vaguest of details. It clearly was not epilepsy. Nor was it injuries, or she would have said so.

Foster care, in this case, likely involved friends of the family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP

Okay, PP.


Doesn't change anything about the fabrications and lies. Let's wait until she takes this to trial and see what shakes out. She's an adult -- if she wants to air it all out and have her story tested and publicly evaluated for truth, she can do that.

I suspect the mother has plenty of evidence. What's shocking is that a doctor with one child couldn't control that one child. I suspect the mother got bad advice in the beginning.

Maybe she is still getting bad advice.

The mom probably had her own life and not very involved. I suspect she paid for the last year of private as you have to prepay.

Someone close to the girl if not the girl has been in this thread and repeatedly said the ritzy day school gave her a "full scholarship" for 12th grade. Her school is $30,000 a year. But then someone recently claimed she was in the foster system for two years. So did she get "full scholarships" for both 11th and 12th?

She pulled the stunt in September of her junior year. I assume she chose the time because the tuition (which her mother had paid as usual) had just become non refundable. And the person was arguing very carefully: they said she lived with foster families for two years. Mackenzie was in the foster system for less than a year, from the fall of her junior year until the August before her senior year. But she continued to live with her last foster family throughout her senior year of high school. So: one year in the foster system, one year of scholarship, two years “living with foster families.”

With Mackenzie, you have to parse every word.

Agree she stretched the truth, but if not she probably would not have gotten a scholarship and she was in a no win situation in terms of college if they look at parents income and parents wouldn't pay. Two years in foster care is no picnic.

But let's be clear -- it was a year or less actually in "foster care," unless you are counting overlapping from fall of one year to summer of the next as two years, just because there are numerically two separate years bridged.

Foster care lasts until the 18th birthday. She was already past her seventeenth birthday.

I don't mean to say that any time in foster care is an easy step, but this story has so much manipulation and parsing of language very carefully to drive it, that I don't want to keep perpetuating inaccuracies.

Like I said, she'd have made a great lawyer

She can. But she'll have to change her name again. Fierceton is just too tainted now, I mean what do you think of Laurie Laughlin, positive or negative?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP

Okay, PP.


Doesn't change anything about the fabrications and lies. Let's wait until she takes this to trial and see what shakes out. She's an adult -- if she wants to air it all out and have her story tested and publicly evaluated for truth, she can do that.

I suspect the mother has plenty of evidence. What's shocking is that a doctor with one child couldn't control that one child. I suspect the mother got bad advice in the beginning.

Maybe she is still getting bad advice.

The mom probably had her own life and not very involved. I suspect she paid for the last year of private as you have to prepay.

Someone close to the girl if not the girl has been in this thread and repeatedly said the ritzy day school gave her a "full scholarship" for 12th grade. Her school is $30,000 a year. But then someone recently claimed she was in the foster system for two years. So did she get "full scholarships" for both 11th and 12th?

She pulled the stunt in September of her junior year. I assume she chose the time because the tuition (which her mother had paid as usual) had just become non refundable. And the person was arguing very carefully: they said she lived with foster families for two years. Mackenzie was in the foster system for less than a year, from the fall of her junior year until the August before her senior year. But she continued to live with her last foster family throughout her senior year of high school. So: one year in the foster system, one year of scholarship, two years “living with foster families.”

With Mackenzie, you have to parse every word.

Agree she stretched the truth, but if not she probably would not have gotten a scholarship and she was in a no win situation in terms of college if they look at parents income and parents wouldn't pay. Two years in foster care is no picnic.

But let's be clear -- it was a year or less actually in "foster care," unless you are counting overlapping from fall of one year to summer of the next as two years, just because there are numerically two separate years bridged.

Foster care lasts until the 18th birthday. She was already past her seventeenth birthday.

I don't mean to say that any time in foster care is an easy step, but this story has so much manipulation and parsing of language very carefully to drive it, that I don't want to keep perpetuating inaccuracies.

Do you have teenagers? Because many of them get upset when one of their friends switches out of their art class or there’s a new, “mean” math teacher. It would be absolutely traumatic and disruptive to live outside your family unit for two years. I’m not saying she didn’t amp up the pathos in her story but us insane to act like her situation isn’t a major hardship. Of course her difficulties pale in comparison to kids raised entirely in foster care but I don’t think she hid the timeline nor did she hide the pricey private school. And no, I am not the girl or her friend posting! I’m just someone who works with teens who finds the idea of a disturbed newly 17 year old masterminding this for college admission absurd.

[Anonymous]

Also, being her mom's only child, and her mother a successful doctor, it is unlikely her college wouldn't have been paid for

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP

Okay, PP.


Doesn't change anything about the fabrications and lies. Let's wait until she takes this to trial and see what shakes out. She's an adult -- if she wants to air it all out and have her story tested and publicly evaluated for truth, she can do that.

I suspect the mother has plenty of evidence. What's shocking is that a doctor with one child couldn't control that one child. I suspect the mother got bad advice in the beginning.

Maybe she is still getting bad advice.

The mom probably had her own life and not very involved. I suspect she paid for the last year of private as you have to prepay.

Someone close to the girl if not the girl has been in this thread and repeatedly said the ritzy day school gave her a "full scholarship" for 12th grade. Her school is $30,000 a year. But then someone recently claimed she was in the foster system for two years. So did she get "full scholarships" for both 11th and 12th?

She pulled the stunt in September of her junior year. I assume she chose the time because the tuition (which her mother had paid as usual) had just become non refundable. And the person was arguing very carefully: they said she lived with foster families for two years. Mackenzie was in the foster system for less than a year, from the fall of her junior year until the August before her senior year. But she continued to live with her last foster family throughout her senior year of high school. So: one year in the foster system, one year of scholarship, two years “living with foster families.”

With Mackenzie, you have to parse every word.

Agree she stretched the truth, but if not she probably would not have gotten a scholarship and she was in a no win situation in terms of college if they look at parents income and parents wouldn't pay. Two years in foster care is no picnic.

But let's be clear -- it was a year or less actually in "foster care," unless you are counting overlapping from fall of one year to summer of the next as two years, just because there are numerically two separate years bridged.

Foster care lasts until the 18th birthday. She was already past her seventeenth birthday.

I don't mean to say that any time in foster care is an easy step, but this story has so much manipulation and parsing of language very carefully to drive it, that I don't want to keep perpetuating inaccuracies.

Do you have teenagers? Because many of them get upset when one of their friends switches out of their art class or there’s a new, “mean” math teacher. It would be absolutely traumatic and disruptive to live outside your family unit for two years. I’m not saying she didn’t amp up the pathos in her story but us insane to act like her situation isn’t a major hardship. Of course her difficulties pale in comparison to kids raised entirely in foster care but I don’t think she hid the timeline nor did she hide the pricey private school. And no, I am not the girl or her friend posting! I’m just someone who works with teens who finds the idea of a disturbed newly 17 year old masterminding this for college admission absurd.

Then you don't know what it takes to get into HYPS these days. And she only got into Penn, ok? So the others smelled a rat, I suspect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DP

Okay, PP.


Doesn't change anything about the fabrications and lies. Let's wait until she takes this to trial and see what shakes out. She's an adult -- if she wants to air it all out and have her story tested and publicly evaluated for truth, she can do that.

I suspect the mother has plenty of evidence. What's shocking is that a doctor with one child couldn't control that one child. I suspect the mother got bad advice in the beginning.

Maybe she is still getting bad advice.

The mom probably had her own life and not very involved. I suspect she paid for the last year of private as you have to prepay.

Someone close to the girl if not the girl has been in this thread and repeatedly said the ritzy day school gave her a "full scholarship" for 12th grade. Her school is $30,000 a year. But then someone recently claimed she was in the foster system for two years. So did she get "full scholarships" for both 11th and 12th?

She pulled the stunt in September of her junior year. I assume she chose the time because the tuition (which her mother had paid as usual) had just become non refundable. And the person was arguing very carefully: they said she lived with foster families for two years. Mackenzie was in the foster system for less than a year, from the fall of her junior year until the August before her senior year. But she continued to live with her last foster family throughout her senior year of high school. So: one year in the foster system, one year of scholarship, two years “living with foster families.”

With Mackenzie, you have to parse every word.

Agree she stretched the truth, but if not she probably would not have gotten a scholarship and she was in a no win situation in terms of college if they look at parents income and parents wouldn't pay. Two years in foster care is no picnic.

But let's be clear -- it was a year or less actually in "foster care," unless you are counting overlapping from fall of one year to summer of the next as two years, just because there are numerically two separate years bridged.

Foster care lasts until the 18th birthday. She was already past her seventeenth birthday.

I don't mean to say that any time in foster care is an easy step, but this story has so much manipulation and parsing of language very carefully to drive it, that I don't want to keep perpetuating inaccuracies.

Do you have teenagers? Because many of them get upset when one of their friends switches out of their art class or there’s a new, “mean” math teacher. It would be absolutely traumatic and disruptive to live outside your family unit for two years. I’m not saying she didn’t amp up the pathos in her story but us insane to act like her situation isn’t a major hardship. Of course her difficulties pale in comparison to kids raised entirely in foster care but I don’t think she hid the timeline nor did she hide the pricey private school. And no, I am not the girl or her friend posting! I’m just someone who works with teens who finds the idea of a disturbed newly 17 year old masterminding this for college admission absurd.

??? I'm sure she could have gotten into Wash U. without the "my mom broke me" nonsense, but she couldn't stop there. And then the Rhodes? I shudder to think where she would be if she hadn't been stopped.

[Anonymous]

A really sad commentary on college admissions. If you are unhooked, what do you need these days to get into an IVY?

Good grades, yes, and be a class president -- but that won't do it. No, it helps to be LGBTQ with epilepsy who spent a year in foster care. Now, hey, that's a compelling admissions story. So I'm not sure we can fully condemn Mackenzie for playing this game; and then Penn says: "we're shocked, shocked," to find she's really just a rich white chick who had a beef with her mom, probably over the mom's boyfriend and ran away from home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not only would high school tuition have been paid, September happens to be the same month QuestBridge apps are due. Maybe she stumbled upon QuestBridge, say on reddit or college confidential, and it got her thinking...

I recall stumbling upon those QuestBridge threads on college confidential and being amazed at the schools some of the kids were getting into.

I contend the entire thing was an admissions con. Her being class president tells us she was a striver long before gunning for a Rhodes. Her QuestBridge list likely had HYPS at the top, followed by the other Ivies.

I agree the whole thing was a con, but it was a premeditated one. She applied for Questbridge 12 months after the incident. Incident is September of her JUNIOR year. Questbridge application was September of her SENIOR year.

I understand it was the September before her own Questbridge app was submitted. But my point is her junior year Aug and Sept are when those Questbridge threads on message boards are most active, ie she could stumble upon them. This was a program she never qualified for but she was clearly studying it. I suspect she was studying it and knew of it when she first made claims against her mother.