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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, I imagine the facts will come out because now Penn can subpoena the hospital for its records if they hadn’t before.

the idea that medical records are infallible is LAUGHABLE. My hospital system makes notes accessible via their online system; I always check them afterwards because I'm curious and want to make sure I understood the doctor correctly. There's almost always a small detail wrong, and sometimes very large details wrong. When I got a concussion, the doctor wrote that I had no nausea following my injury, when in fact the only reason I went to urgent care after hitting my head was because of the continued nausea (my partner was there and can confirm I said this multiple times). Many doctors have written that I have fibromyalgia when I told them I have dysautonomia. My partner has been referred to as my mother multiple times (!?). The ENT has told me that my neck muscles are extremely tight and that I'm very congested, and then written in the nose/neck sections of the note that everything is normal. I could go on and on.

Mackenzie was what, 16 when she was in the hospital? She was having seizures. She was there for three weeks, put into foster care, and subjected to a police investigation. Is it really so shocking that she'd misremember minor details from an extremely traumatizing time in her life? We know that trauma interferes with memory.

[Anonymous]

This girl clearly went through trauma in high school and was indisputably in foster care until she aged out. I don’t really care if she was melodramatic in the telling!

[Anonymous]

So I thought when you applied to college you had to provide college with your high school transcript and then confirmation you graduated.

How in the world would UPenn NOT know what high school she went to and that it was a pricey private school? Of course they knew. I don’t understand the debate over this.

[Anonymous]

The strange thing to me is that she was able to stay in private school. Penn knew from her transcript that she was from a private school so if they had questions about the veracity of her story those should have been asked before they admitted her years ago.

As someone who used to work in the foster care system, going to private school where I worked was unheard of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

There is a really well known college consultant who encourages applicants to shade the truth. I.e. Don't ay that your mom is the head of cardiology at Mass General. Say she is a "hospital worker" so the admissions people will think she works in the cafeteria for minimum wage, etc

Yeah, sure, but all of the financials come out when you file the CSS as a needy child of said hospital worker. I don’t see how a huge discrepancy in job title and salary could be spun.

If I'm recalling what I've read so far, she applied & was accepted as an independent student. Due to that brief foster care status she was regarded as parentless. My guess is she got in on a full ride with this heroic victimhood she presented. As another FGLI before it was thing, I know how difficult it was/is to have legitimate "independent" status as a 17 yo. If it weren't imagine how many parents would work that advantage. It's bad enough what happens just under the current system of "shading" & finagling the truth.

Right, that’s what happened at UIUC. Some shady parents had their kids declare themselves independent to get 100% aid. Well, at least those fools got caught.

Claiming independent means nothing what you think it means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I thought when you applied to college you had to provide college with your high school transcript and then confirmation you graduated.

How in the world would UPenn NOT know what high school she went to and that it was a pricey private school? Of course they knew. I don’t understand the debate over this.

Did she sign off on financial records? Did her family pay for school?

[Anonymous]

Mackenzie has openly stated that the fact she went to OMG PRIVATE SCHOOL in an OMG WEALTHY SUBURB was an enormous privilege as she navigated the foster care system as a teenager. She's never tried to hide it. And of course Penn knew, the name of the high school is the first thing they see when they look at your transcripts when deciding whether or not to admit you.

No clue why people are trying to gotcha her on that. Pretty sh*tty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I thought when you applied to college you had to provide college with your high school transcript and then confirmation you graduated.

How in the world would UPenn NOT know what high school she went to and that it was a pricey private school? Of course they knew. I don’t understand the debate over this.

Winner winner chicken dinner

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I thought when you applied to college you had to provide college with your high school transcript and then confirmation you graduated.

How in the world would UPenn NOT know what high school she went to and that it was a pricey private school? Of course they knew. I don’t understand the debate over this.

Did she sign off on financial records? Did her family pay for school?

She is an emancipated minor

[Anonymous]

The Ivy League is literally full of frauds like this who fabricate their ENTIRE background and also scam financial aid by hiding assets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

There is a really well known college consultant who encourages applicants to shade the truth. I.e. Don't ay that your mom is the head of cardiology at Mass General. Say she is a "hospital worker" so the admissions people will think she works in the cafeteria for minimum wage, etc

Yeah, sure, but all of the financials come out when you file the CSS as a needy child of said hospital worker. I don’t see how a huge discrepancy in job title and salary could be spun.

If I'm recalling what I've read so far, she applied & was accepted as an independent student. Due to that brief foster care status she was regarded as parentless. My guess is she got in on a full ride with this heroic victimhood she presented. As another FGLI before it was thing, I know how difficult it was/is to have legitimate "independent" status as a 17 yo. If it weren't imagine how many parents would work that advantage. It's bad enough what happens just under the current system of "shading" & finagling the truth.

Right, that’s what happened at UIUC. Some shady parents had their kids declare themselves independent to get 100% aid. Well, at least those fools got caught.

Claiming independent means nothing what you think it means.

Explain. I don't understand what you mean. Independent opens up a much broader array of funding & FA choices. And obviously full ride assistance.

[Anonymous]

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.

There is a really well known college consultant who encourages applicants to shade the truth. I.e. Don't ay that your mom is the head of cardiology at Mass General. Say she is a "hospital worker" so the admissions people will think she works in the cafeteria for minimum wage, etc

and then they'll see that your home address is in Lexington and you graduated from Noble & Greenough and realize exactly what you are doing. I promise you, admissions people aren't that dumb. Sounds like a really bad college counselor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone wonder why she voluntary withdrew from the scholarship if she felt so strongly she was being treated unfairly?
She and her lawyer were presented with the discrepancies and given a chance to respond, and then she withdrew from participating in the program.

Because she never had a claim to a Rhodes scholarship so she can't sue to get it. Penn revoking her degree is something she can win on - if they show this was done without due process, or in retaliation, or in any way incorrectly, she gets her degree back. If she makes a strong case that there were no lies on the Rhodes application then they can still say she doesn't get it because it's not something she earned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does anyone wonder why she voluntary withdrew from the scholarship if she felt so strongly she was being treated unfairly?
She and her lawyer were presented with the discrepancies and given a chance to respond, and then she withdrew from participating in the program.

Because she never had a claim to a Rhodes scholarship so she can't sue to get it. Penn revoking her degree is something she can win on - if they show this was done without due process, or in retaliation, or in any way incorrectly, she gets her degree back. If she makes a strong case that there were no lies on the Rhodes application then they can still say she doesn't get it because it's not something she earned.

If she lost the Rhodes Scholarship because Penn slandered her she can sue for the "value" of that scholarship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is off about her being in foster care and being hospitalized because of her mother's abuse?

The incident happened in 2014, a year before she went to college. So she was in foster homes for one year. But she lied about the rest of her childhood, omitting apparently to tell them she went to a $30,000 a year private school and her mother was a radiologist. And of course the prosecutor dropped the charges against the mother and said they couldn't be proven. And the Rhodes Committee said her description of her injuries were inconsistent with the hospital records. Does that answer your question?

I am not sure where you are getting this information. here's what I found in an article from February 2021. It sounds like Mackenzie has been forthcoming about her private school.
Fierceton’s research hits close to home. Having spent time in foster homes in St. Louis, she understands how the system stacks odds against children like her. According to studies, about 50 percent of foster youth graduate from high school and only 2.5 percent from a four-year college. “The overwhelming majority of foster youth do want to complete high school and go on to college or trade school or vocational school,” Fierceton claims. “But then when we get there, we have no support and the wheels just kind of fall off, in a sense.”

Fierceton notes that her experience in the foster system, while still difficult, was an exception to the rule. She went to a private high school, where the adults looked out for her, almost approximating a sense of family. Teachers showed up at soccer games and theater performances, while friends’ families invited her over for holidays and ensured she had clothes and “everything she needed” while she moved through the system.

“For foster youth, in particular, your success is determined by your social support and social capital,” she says. “I got where I am today because I don’t face the innumerable racial, educational, and sociopolitical marginalizations that the vast majority of foster youth experience. That’s why I was able to go to Penn, and why I have access to so many spaces.”

Fierceton is currently pursuing a master’s in social work at Penn with an eye toward reforming the system she spent time in—even if that means having a gentler understanding of the social workers who struggled to support her. “When I aged out of the foster care system, I wanted to get as far away from [it] as possible. I never wanted to talk to another social worker for the rest of my life,” she says, remembering one particular caseworker of hers who never bothered to learn her name after skipping visits for months. At the time, again from a hospital bed, Fierceton emailed “every politician [she] could think of” about how they must reform child welfare and find her a better caseworker.

Reading only the content you quoted, it does seem like she is describing herself as someone who was in the foster system a long time. I get that just one year in the system is difficult, but there are undoubtedly many, many kids who are in the system their whole lives—unlike Fierceton who had a home with her mother for all but 1 year before heading off to college, if I understand correctly. She seems to be equating her experience with theirs and I would imagine that the two experiences are very different. So this suggests she is intentionally misleading by encouraging people to think it was different than it was.