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

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

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.

[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.

She said she was in foster care in her college apps and she was. Kids that age have a skewed perspective-a boyfriend of a few months is “long-term” and it makes sense that when doing college essays, a year into being out of her mothers care, it felt like she had been in the system for ages. There is no indication she kept her other life before foster care secret as she gave interviews about her private school days to a newspaper (though she may not have discussed it in her essay, nor was she obligated to.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a very bad look on the university if the accusations are proven to be true.

Why? They don't do background checks on every applicant or admit. People sign their applications - read what you are signing.

It isn't Penn's fault if her origin story was embellished or a lie. But they do have the right to rescind based on academic fraud. A false admissions submission would foot the bill.

[Anonymous]

Just admit the students solely on academic merits.

Why do you have to be poor to get additioanl points while they also take tons of money from rich people/legacy and admit them

It's always only the middle class that suffers.

[Anonymous]

Real question… does the personal statement actually have to be true. Can’t it be just a writing sample. I seriously never thought the personal statement was supposed to be “the truth”.

You never state all statements in this essay are true.

Both my kids took an incident in their life and wrote a fictional story around it, full of 1/2 truths and embellishments.

Jim Steinman Went to Amherst and wrote a personal statement that he wrote a novella while hiking the pacific trail.

He did neither.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s not clear to me that she lied even. Clearly a fuller picture changes the nature of her accomplishments but even assuming a stable and wealthy upbringing (and the stable is questionable given later events) the fact that it was entirely disrupted when she was a junior is a big deal! And it sounds like she genuinely doesn’t have a family of any kind and hasn’t since 11th grade.

I think it’s absurd and distasteful how university officials trot out students with troubled or underprivileged backgrounds brownie points.

While I disagree and think this student is a sociopathic opportunistic embellisher, it IS gross that universities trot these stories out for brownie points — further enabling a motive for students to lie. Ugh all around. I don’t even know why I’m saving for my kids’ college sometimes.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Penn alum here who read the whole (LONG!) story a few days ago. My take is that Fierceton is brilliant and some combination of conniving and/or mentally ill. Some of the same must also be true of the mother, although it's harder to gauge how much. The prosecutor eventually dropped the charges against the mom, but they must have had a toxic relationship - the kid kept a 100+page journal in HS ranting about how awful her mother was. If this was a Law & Order episode, she would have been the character who conspired to get her dumb boyfriend to kill her mother.

It's clear from the story that Fierceton really misrepresented herself on her application and during her time at Penn. She wasn't first generation, she wasn't low income, she was only briefly in the foster system. But the story also read like she really believed her own fake, kind of like that NAACP woman who faked being Black for years.

I was struck by the notation in the piece that Penn's first generation/low income student advocacy group has taken to defining that status as "first generation to elite schools." Which is completely ridiculous and only slightly less obnoxious than what Fierceton did. I would have fit that definition, and yes going to a school like Penn was a culture shock. But it sure as hell isn't the same as coming from a truly disadvantaged or first-gen background. Redefining FGLI as someone from a 'non-elite' family is just another example of how the UMC tries to hoard privilege for itself.

The other thing that stood out to me was the professors defending Fierceton. I get it on some level - she is clearly bright and impressive even if her bootstraps tale is mostly bogus. But there's something warped about academics endorsing her deception. Affirming a kid's chosen identity is all well and good but at some point honesty and truth should matter more.

[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.

So, say your child has a sociopathic mindset. She wrongly accused you of some things (there is a big question mark, but lets say the accusations were without merit), breaks off and becomes estranged. But she seems to be doing well on her own, had some major achievements and is off to great things. Would you actively try to destroy her career as in reaching out to newspapers with your version of truth? How many parents here are calling IRS because their bratty kids are not declaring their babysitting or lawn mowing income? The mother's behavior looks very off to me, I think most parents in this situation would just sigh and keep going with their lives.

[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???
.

From UPenn, yes and there are other examples.

[Anonymous]

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.

How does that make you more qualified as a Rhodes Scholar?

[Anonymous]

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.

So she should be a Rhodes Scholar because her mom pushed her down the stairs? So maybe that's another "hook" these days, Get your parents to push you down some stairs.

[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.

So, say your child has a sociopathic mindset. She wrongly accused you of some things (there is a big question mark, but lets say the accusations were without merit), breaks off and becomes estranged. But she seems to be doing well on her own, had some major achievements and is off to great things. Would you actively try to destroy her career as in reaching out to newspapers with your version of truth? How many parents here are calling IRS because their bratty kids are not declaring their babysitting or lawn mowing income? The mother's behavior looks very off to me, I think most parents in this situation would just sigh and keep going with their lives.

Oh sweetie, I am so glad you don’t come from a family where stories like these make sense. Mom is a mentally ill narcissistic abuser, intent on destroying her daughter to make herself feel better — believe it or not, some of us have moms like this, and this is exactly how they behave — AND daughter is a mentally ill lying opportunistic sociopath. It’s not an either/or.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Penn alum here who read the whole (LONG!) story a few days ago. My take is that Fierceton is brilliant and some combination of conniving and/or mentally ill. Some of the same must also be true of the mother, although it's harder to gauge how much. The prosecutor eventually dropped the charges against the mom, but they must have had a toxic relationship - the kid kept a 100+page journal in HS ranting about how awful her mother was. If this was a Law & Order episode, she would have been the character who conspired to get her dumb boyfriend to kill her mother.

It's clear from the story that Fierceton really misrepresented herself on her application and during her time at Penn. She wasn't first generation, she wasn't low income, she was only briefly in the foster system. But the story also read like she really believed her own fake, kind of like that NAACP woman who faked being Black for years.

I was struck by the notation in the piece that Penn's first generation/low income student advocacy group has taken to defining that status as "first generation to elite schools." Which is completely ridiculous and only slightly less obnoxious than what Fierceton did. I would have fit that definition, and yes going to a school like Penn was a culture shock. But it sure as hell isn't the same as coming from a truly disadvantaged or first-gen background. Redefining FGLI as someone from a 'non-elite' family is just another example of how the UMC tries to hoard privilege for itself.

The other thing that stood out to me was the professors defending Fierceton. I get it on some level - she is clearly bright and impressive even if her bootstraps tale is mostly bogus. But there's something warped about academics endorsing her deception. Affirming a kid's chosen identity is all well and good but at some point honesty and truth should matter more.

Wonderful summary. Even her last name is a made up replacement for her birth name. There is something deep rooted and very off with this girl/woman. -A real FGLI, non-ivy graduate.