Another Black Eye for Penn

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Safe bet her and her “team” are on this thread. Their desperate game plan seems to be doubling down on the lies, distortions, finger pointing, and gas light everyone. Why? Because of optics. She’s a cute white woman who looks younger than age 25 and she’s been getting away with this serial liar coquette routine for a decade. If this was an ugly and scary looking poor white boy from a trailer park or poor Black or Hispanic boy from a St Louis ghetto they’d have zero tenured faculty on their side and would be facing several felony counts for fraud and theft.

White privilege personified.

Nice grammar, illiterate fool.

Please pardon my juvenile prose. I didn’t grow up a rich white spoiled brat at $30,000 yr elite schools, live in a surgeon’s mansion, and get a new Mercedes for my 16th birthday, and then steal a place at an Ivy League college.

So much butthurt over a stranger.

You’re projecting. That wasn’t about the McKensy woman. Just a hypothetical rich girl. But if the shoe fits I can see why you’d assume if it was snark about the Philly Liz Holmes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Safe bet her and her “team” are on this thread. Their desperate game plan seems to be doubling down on the lies, distortions, finger pointing, and gas light everyone. Why? Because of optics. She’s a cute white woman who looks younger than age 25 and she’s been getting away with this serial liar coquette routine for a decade. If this was an ugly and scary looking poor white boy from a trailer park or poor Black or Hispanic boy from a St Louis ghetto they’d have zero tenured faculty on their side and would be facing several felony counts for fraud and theft.

White privilege personified.

Nice grammar, illiterate fool.

Please pardon my juvenile prose. I didn’t grow up a rich white spoiled brat at $30,000 yr elite schools, live in a surgeon’s mansion, and get a new Mercedes for my 16th birthday, and then steal a place at an Ivy League college.

So much butthurt over a stranger.

Like horseback riding makes being groped and beaten okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Safe bet her and her “team” are on this thread. Their desperate game plan seems to be doubling down on the lies, distortions, finger pointing, and gas light everyone. Why? Because of optics. She’s a cute white woman who looks younger than age 25 and she’s been getting away with this serial liar coquette routine for a decade. If this was an ugly and scary looking poor white boy from a trailer park or poor Black or Hispanic boy from a St Louis ghetto they’d have zero tenured faculty on their side and would be facing several felony counts for fraud and theft.

White privilege personified.

The mom is white privilege personified. She should face consequences for her abuse.

The prosecuter said pursuing the mom was the biggest mistake of his career. The mom is like 60 years old with a clean record and a sterling professional medical record. Meanwhile, the messy daughter is 25 and is suing everyone and mooching from people.

The woman laughed about her boyfriend groping her daughter. That prosecutor's judgment was way off.

Is it a vast conspiracy by the mom, her dead boyfriend, hospitals, prosecutors, judges, Penn administration, Penn lawyers, Rhodes committee, and various reporters........... or is the common denominator an unemployed 25 year old rich white brat?

She’s been wronged by her mom and Penn. The rest is fallout.

Penn and her mom made her at age 22 or 23 pathologically lie to Rhodes and reporters and tweet those lies on her own account (she later deleted)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please run that long post through some identification software and compare it to some of Mackenzie's previous writing?

Hey loser, you do it. This story reminds me of Monica Lewinsky. Essentially a kid held to a higher standard than the adults and institutions around her. And we know how well that story aged. It’s widely accepted now that Lewinsky was the victim of a higher coordinated bully campaign. Shameful. And that goes to those posting here relentlessly trying to deflect blame away from where it is deserved—her diabolical mother, her mother’s abusive boyfriend, the legal system, UPenn.

I'm the pp who said that I don't think Mackenzie deserves all the blame. She had a long psychiatric hospitalization. She definitely came from a dysfunctional family.
This doesn't excuse her from manipulating the system, but it doesn't mean that she was the victim in every possible way imaginable either.

The real truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

DP. Oh, agreed.

And I also don't want someone with that history -- and who is still doubling down and attacking others -- getting any support for moving into politics or being licensed to work over vulnerable people. She needs support for dealing with her history and damage. Her mother may well need to address her own issues, too.

But in no way does any of this make her either ready or somehow deserving of power or responsibility. She needs help.

She definitely needs help. Our society tends to like to paint people as angels or monsters. She can be sick and need kindness, not necessarily for the reasons she claims to need them, but for other reasons.

Frankly it's kind of tragic that someone so intelligent has managed to ruin their life like this at the age of 25. It wouldn't surprise me if they were familial issues contributing as well. This would not have gotten this far if her mother had spoken up way earlier.

Yeah. I don't have any problem believing there are few (if any) healthy people in this story. That includes the Penn profs who have been supporting her, as much as the mother.

I don't think we need to demonize someone to acknowledge that they did not qualify for a position that they achieved by untruthful means. You don't even have to "prove" it was deliberate to acknowledge that. I do think some posters here elide the two -- as if saying she shouldn't have X means you are either demonizing her, or that you are saying she was evil. But I think they think eliding it makes their argument stronger, somehow.

Nope. Just not qualified for it, by the specific qualifications of entry.

Except she was. By Penn and Questbridge’s very definitions. There’s no disputing that.

Why was it that the Rhodes committee asked her to withdraw her application, again?

So you agree she met the definition at Penn? The place she is suing for wrongfully withholding her MSW?

She’s lucky Penn didn’t claw back the bachelor’s too and sue her for all the aid she got.

I agree with this. Other students have lost their credits for far less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please run that long post through some identification software and compare it to some of Mackenzie's previous writing?

Hey loser, you do it. This story reminds me of Monica Lewinsky. Essentially a kid held to a higher standard than the adults and institutions around her. And we know how well that story aged. It’s widely accepted now that Lewinsky was the victim of a higher coordinated bully campaign. Shameful. And that goes to those posting here relentlessly trying to deflect blame away from where it is deserved—her diabolical mother, her mother’s abusive boyfriend, the legal system, UPenn.

I'm the pp who said that I don't think Mackenzie deserves all the blame. She had a long psychiatric hospitalization. She definitely came from a dysfunctional family.
This doesn't excuse her from manipulating the system, but it doesn't mean that she was the victim in every possible way imaginable either.

The real truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

DP. Oh, agreed.

And I also don't want someone with that history -- and who is still doubling down and attacking others -- getting any support for moving into politics or being licensed to work over vulnerable people. She needs support for dealing with her history and damage. Her mother may well need to address her own issues, too.

But in no way does any of this make her either ready or somehow deserving of power or responsibility. She needs help.

She definitely needs help. Our society tends to like to paint people as angels or monsters. She can be sick and need kindness, not necessarily for the reasons she claims to need them, but for other reasons.

Frankly it's kind of tragic that someone so intelligent has managed to ruin their life like this at the age of 25. It wouldn't surprise me if they were familial issues contributing as well. This would not have gotten this far if her mother had spoken up way earlier.

Yeah. I don't have any problem believing there are few (if any) healthy people in this story. That includes the Penn profs who have been supporting her, as much as the mother.

I don't think we need to demonize someone to acknowledge that they did not qualify for a position that they achieved by untruthful means. You don't even have to "prove" it was deliberate to acknowledge that. I do think some posters here elide the two -- as if saying she shouldn't have X means you are either demonizing her, or that you are saying she was evil. But I think they think eliding it makes their argument stronger, somehow.

Nope. Just not qualified for it, by the specific qualifications of entry.

Except she was. By Penn and Questbridge’s very definitions. There’s no disputing that.

Why was it that the Rhodes committee asked her to withdraw her application, again?

Technically they didn’t. It was Penn that asked her to withdraw. The Rhodes investigative subcommittee issued a report recommending that the scholarship be rescinded, but Mackenzie had an opportunity to respond and challenge the subcommittee’s finding before a final determination was made by the Rhodes Trust. According to reports, Mackenzie wanted to submit a response but was advised not to by her attorney after Penn’s general counsel threatened to refer the matter to federal prosecutors based on alleged misrepresentations in her financial aid application (although it does not appear there were any actual misrepresentations in her federal financial aid applications). Mackenzie reportedly decided to withdraw her application instead.

Strangely she didn’t want to be prosecuted in Federal court for her crimes. Hmmm what a victim.

She didn't commit any crimes but was trying to save herself from a vindictive administrator.

This isn't going to trial, Penn is going to quietly pat her a boatload of money. And she deserves it. They tried to ruin her life because some admin was dumb enough to listen to her abuser.

I think Penn is in the wrong here, but why wouldn’t they have already tried to settle? Why the 90 page response?

If they don't file a Response they risk default and responses are on a deadline. The negotiations take time.

I do think Penn will ultimately settle and have to pay Mackenzie a bunch of money (and release her masters and also clear her publicly). But I don't think they chose to file a response just to meet a deadline. The reason the response so dramatically paints Mackenzie as some kind of master criminal (a laughable suggestion) is because it strengthens their negotiating position. They want to use the media and their institutional gravitas to make Mackenzie look as bad as possible, so that she feels forced to settle for less. I'm glad Mackenzie if fighting back by getting her own story out.

But there's a lot more on the line for Penn than just avoiding a big payout. It's also that they know they screwed up almost every step of the way here. It's going to come out, one way or another, that the misrepresentative press about Mackenzie's Rhodes was planted not by Mackenzie, but by Penn. They are the ones who wanted her painted as a kid who had escaped poverty and was rescued by a Penn education (and their largesse) to become a Rhodes scholar. She didn't sell anyone that line -- Penn did. And when it turned out not to be true, they knew they'd been caught trying to do exactly what Mackenzie is now accused of doing -- overstating a hard luck story in order to curry favor by people in power. They did this, not Mackenzie (she should NOT have gone along with it, but there are questions as to how she would have stopped it once Penn had gotten the early press out there claiming she'd grown up poor -- at that point, no matter what she does makes her look bad).

Anyway, this will come out in the pleadings or at trial if it makes it that far, and Penn is working very hard to make themselves look like innocent victims before it does so that no one notices -- this was their con!

Yes, it’s the Inquirer reporter who said in her article that Mackenzie grew up poor, something which Mackenzie herself never claimed.

I agree that Penn is probably responsible for Mackenzie being hyped to the point where it was over the top. The editor at the Inquirer who assigned that story and oversaw it’s publication is married to the press spokeswoman at Penn who was responsible for the Rhodes publicity campaign at Penn. we don’t know what was said and to whom, but there was a clear conflict of interests for this editor. He never should have involved himself with this story. Instead he should have handed it off to someone else to assign and supervise. But he didn’t, so now Penn is open to all kinds of criticism just because there’s the appearance of impropriety.

[Anonymous]

The Inquirer has a lot of problems and 21st century “old boy culture”. Everyone connected to everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let’s turn the page and put the spotlight on Penn in this matter:

1. UPenn first promoted a student for a Rhodes Scholarship. Then after she received it, they backpedaled and attacked the student. In this process, they have lurched from one extreme to the other. At the very least, they least they convey the impression that they don’t know what they’re doing.

2. Penn’s position is that mistakes were made. Despite their full participation in the first phase of promoting the student as a Rhodes applicant, including feeding a narrative to the press and making numerous public statements of praise for her, beginning with the university president herself. After lauding the candidate before condemning her, they have admitted no mistakes on their part in this process and have taken no responsibility for any mistakes that were made.

3. UPenn immediately upon receiving potentially embarrassing information about their candidate launched a full investigation into the candidate. However, to date they have announced no investigation into their own process that led to this situation. No heads have rolled for failing to do due diligence in preparing their nomination. They have instead painted their fabulously wealthy and highly resourced institution as a hapless victim, exploited initially by a homeless teenager and then again by this same individual after having received a Penn education up to the master’s degree level. Some educational outcome if you believe their allegations!

4. In their efforts to present themselves as the victim, UPenn repeatedly misrepresented the facts and violated their own policies by failing to disclose basic information to the student. Their first misrepresentation was their claim that they had been alerted to the student’s past in St. Louis by an anonymous e-mail. The truth was that they had received 2 e-mails, one anonymous and one whose identity was known, the father of a former prep school classmate. They then immediately contacted the student’s estranged biological mother about her educational status. In this process, UPenn failed to disclose the identity of the known e-mailer to the student nor did they disclose their communication with her mother. This was a clear violation of policy and possibly of law.

5. After their initial contacts, UPenn then proceeded to conduct a secret investigation without notifying the student involved. UPenn claimed that the secrecy was required in order to protect the privacy of witnesses. They lied. There is no such right to privacy to participants in a university sponsored investigation of one of their students. And they failed to notify the student of the investigation, to whom they do have a responsibility and who does have rights. These “protected wutnesses” were in reality collaborators in an orchestrated smear campaign by UPenn.

6. After concluding their investigation, UPenn wrote a letter to the Rhodes Foundation about the student, informing them of the results of their faux “investigation”. Instead of informing the student of their actions and sending her a copy of the report per normal procedure, they kept this secret from her for the better part of a month.

7. While claiming that this investigation was necessary for them to learn the real facts of the student’s background, the truth is that the student had never misrepresented her background. All the way back to her initial application to Penn and the accompanying transcripts, the student was fully transparent about the fact that she had attended a privileged private school for rich kids. At no point in their efforts to hype up their Rhodes nomination or in their process of seeking publicity to celebrate it did UPenn contact the prep school and seek any information about their student’s background. In fact, it was the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who wrote the Rhodes Scholar story who falsely reported that the student had “grown up poor”, something which the student herself had never claimed. Furthermore, in a blatant conflict of interests, the editor who assigned the reporter to this story, gave her her marching orders with regard to the story, and oversaw the final version that went to print, is married to Penn’s information director whose job is to hype stories like this. This editor obviously should have steered clear of the story, but instead he involved himself in it.

8. UPenn never submitted a list of people whom they interviewed in St. Louis. They never submitted any opinions or information which were obtained in this sham “investigation”. Instead they submitted a slanted, one sided report to Rhodes, failing to include any information they obtained which contradicted their main thesis that they were the victims of a student intent on scamming them. Yet we know that there were in fact information and witnesses who contradicted this thesis.

9. Then, while they were keeping the student in the dark about their investigation or it’s results and unable to defend herself or even have knowledge of what she was being accused of, UPenn scheduled her to be interviewed by the Vice Provost. According to the faculty member who sat with the student during the interview, the interview was conducted as an interrogation without regard to the interests of the student. A grievance was later filed by multiple faculty members alleging that the interview was conducted in violation of university procedures. Clearly this entire interview process was conducted with complete disregard for due process.

10. The Vice Provost then wrote a hastily constructed letter to the Rhodes Foundation which contained blatant errors as basic as her place of birth and birth name. In addition, the Vice Provost falsely accused the student of misrepresenting herself to her recommenders without even checking with the recommenders. In other words, she lied and invented a false charge. These errors represent one more instance of Penn failing to do its due diligence with regard to basic facts in this case.

11. To further pursue their goals, UPenn bullied the student into withdrawing her Rhodes Scholarship application by threatening to rescind her bachelor’s degree. Their tactics of intimidation continued. They have withheld her master’s degree for which she was notified in writing by the university that she had satisfied all the requirements, until they receive a letter of apology from her in which she admits to all of the allegations of the university. This behaviour is patently absurd. If there are ethical and character grounds for revoking her first degree and withholding the second, those are not ameliorated by withdrawal of an application or by writing a letter. Those claims are clearly just a smokescreen for attempted blackmail and extortion. And in the end no formal charges were ever brought against her for violating Penn’s Code of Academic Integrity, which would be the normal process if any such violation(s) existed.

12. Penn then launched its OSC investigation. After 3 months their only conclusion was one inaccurate statement, which was her checking the first gen box on her master’s application. In arriving at this conclusion, OSC failed to acknowledge Penn’s own confusing multiple definitions of first gen, or the fact that Penn’s own undergraduate admissions office initially classified her as first gen, or the fact that one of their own administrators in SP2 advised her that when in doubt to pick what better positions her for better financial aid, or the fact that the practice across the country is to classify students who age out of the foster care system as first gen.

I have gone to the trouble of laying out the facts of this process to show that UPenn’s behavior throughout this process has been characterized by sloppiness, ineptness, lies, misrepresentations, secrecy, disregard for their own procedures and for due process, conflicts of interest, ethical failures, and failure to take responsibility for their own missteps. They hold their student to a standard which they do not even meet themselves. Throughout, they showed no concern for the welfare of their student, which should be their first concern. This is hypocrisy of the first order. They should finally be held accountable in court.

Those who are outraged by the student’s lies and misrepresentations by the student should be equally outraged when the same behavior is demonstrated by the university. In fact, it’s eminently reasonable to hold them to a higher standard.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please run that long post through some identification software and compare it to some of Mackenzie's previous writing?

Hey loser, you do it. This story reminds me of Monica Lewinsky. Essentially a kid held to a higher standard than the adults and institutions around her. And we know how well that story aged. It’s widely accepted now that Lewinsky was the victim of a higher coordinated bully campaign. Shameful. And that goes to those posting here relentlessly trying to deflect blame away from where it is deserved—her diabolical mother, her mother’s abusive boyfriend, the legal system, UPenn.

I'm the pp who said that I don't think Mackenzie deserves all the blame. She had a long psychiatric hospitalization. She definitely came from a dysfunctional family.
This doesn't excuse her from manipulating the system, but it doesn't mean that she was the victim in every possible way imaginable either.

The real truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

DP. Oh, agreed.

And I also don't want someone with that history -- and who is still doubling down and attacking others -- getting any support for moving into politics or being licensed to work over vulnerable people. She needs support for dealing with her history and damage. Her mother may well need to address her own issues, too.

But in no way does any of this make her either ready or somehow deserving of power or responsibility. She needs help.

She definitely needs help. Our society tends to like to paint people as angels or monsters. She can be sick and need kindness, not necessarily for the reasons she claims to need them, but for other reasons.

Frankly it's kind of tragic that someone so intelligent has managed to ruin their life like this at the age of 25. It wouldn't surprise me if they were familial issues contributing as well. This would not have gotten this far if her mother had spoken up way earlier.

Yeah. I don't have any problem believing there are few (if any) healthy people in this story. That includes the Penn profs who have been supporting her, as much as the mother.

I don't think we need to demonize someone to acknowledge that they did not qualify for a position that they achieved by untruthful means. You don't even have to "prove" it was deliberate to acknowledge that. I do think some posters here elide the two -- as if saying she shouldn't have X means you are either demonizing her, or that you are saying she was evil. But I think they think eliding it makes their argument stronger, somehow.

Nope. Just not qualified for it, by the specific qualifications of entry.

Except she was. By Penn and Questbridge’s very definitions. There’s no disputing that.

Why was it that the Rhodes committee asked her to withdraw her application, again?

Technically they didn’t. It was Penn that asked her to withdraw. The Rhodes investigative subcommittee issued a report recommending that the scholarship be rescinded, but Mackenzie had an opportunity to respond and challenge the subcommittee’s finding before a final determination was made by the Rhodes Trust. According to reports, Mackenzie wanted to submit a response but was advised not to by her attorney after Penn’s general counsel threatened to refer the matter to federal prosecutors based on alleged misrepresentations in her financial aid application (although it does not appear there were any actual misrepresentations in her federal financial aid applications). Mackenzie reportedly decided to withdraw her application instead.

Strangely she didn’t want to be prosecuted in Federal court for her crimes. Hmmm what a victim.

She has always contended, and continues to, that her FAFSA was correct. She listed herself as first-gen on the FAFSA in keeping with the consistent federal definition that a child who has aged out of the foster care system has no family of origin and therefore must, by definition, be first-gen. The reason her lawyer advised her not to respond to the final determination is that once a federal prosecution for FAFSA fraud is initiated, it's an expensive and lengthy ordeal. It's not because she thought she'd lose, it's because she didn't want to engage in a multi-year federal criminal prosecution.

But sure, let's decide that someone who had not lived with her mother for years and had zero financial support from her her was obligated (despite years of contrary precedent) to list her estranged mother as a source of financial support for college. Would Carey have even provided the necessary financial info to do this? The whole point here is that Mackenzie DID NOT HAVE FAMILY FINANCIAL SUPPORT. Just like any other student who was emancipated, abandoned, or aged out of the foster system. Mackenzie may not look like the picture you have in your head of a student with no financial support, but she is. And if that makes you mad, your anger is best placed on the parent who abused Mackenzie and then withdrew financial support.

Do you honestly think Carey was ready to help send Mackenzie to college and Mackenzie just decided to run some scheme to get someone else to pay for it? That doesn't make sense. If Carey was willing and able to pay, why wouldn't Mackenzie just let her? The answer is that she wasn't, and also Mackenzie knew that any offer of support could be used as stick to continue to abuse her. Because that's what abusive parents do.

I think these two things are being conflated. Lack of financial support is not the same things as being first generation attending college. You could be first generation attending college and have plenty of money for college (rich plumber dad!). You could also have college-educated parents that have no money = lack of financial support. The "first gen" box is clearly directed at a certain type of student that colleges are hoping to attract (e.g., a way to get around racial or other quotas).

No one is conflating anything, you just don't understand.

Both the FAFSA and Penn define "first generation" to include students who have aged out of the foster care system. Which is what Mackenzie was. She had no family when she applied to college. Her father either abandoned her as a child or was deprived of visitation by her mom, it's unclear. Her mom abused her and stood by while her boyfriend sexually assaulted her. Her mom was denied parental rights and Mackenzie entered the foster care system, which is where she was when she turned 18. She did not have a home. She did not have a parent or guardian providing for her. She was living off the kindness of friends and her last foster family (who would later have a biological child and, while staying touch with Mackenzie, largely move on). Mackenzie was first-generation for purposes of both her college and financial applications and there is no disputing this. These are the definitions provided by Penn and the FAFSA themselves.

So yes, the lack of financial support was essential to Mackenzie's designation as a first-generation student. The idea is that according to FAFSA/Penn, Mackenzie's mother didn't count as her mother because she had not been acting as a parent or supporting Mackenzie financially. The fact that she once did is not relevant -- this is true for the vast majority of kids in the foster care system. At one point, they lived with a parent or biological relative and were financially supported by that person. And then something happened (abuse, neglect, death, poverty) that led the child to be placed in the foster care system. This is why happened to Mackenzie. That she was placed in the system at 16 instead of at 8 is relevant to understanding her specific story (and she didn't conceal this from anyone), but it's not relevant for the definition of first-generation on these forms.

People keeping saying Mackenzie is "rich" but where is her money? What is her net worth? She literally has none. Her mom might, but Mackenzie has no access to that.

Honestly, if your problem is that Mackenzie got a scholarship to Penn, why not be angry with Mackenzie's mom for not paying the tuition. No one would have stopped her! She could have sent them a check. If Mackenzie is rich, why didn't her mom just pay for her college education?

[Anonymous]

Wow, now we're escalating the smear campaign and attacking journalists? A 22 or 23 year old schemer did not lie to anyone, it was Rhodes, Penn and now a newsroom conspiring against her, pressuring her, and twisting her words? Hahaha. Good luck telling these ducktales to a jury of commoners who are going to smell this rich con artist from a mile away.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please run that long post through some identification software and compare it to some of Mackenzie's previous writing?

Hey loser, you do it. This story reminds me of Monica Lewinsky. Essentially a kid held to a higher standard than the adults and institutions around her. And we know how well that story aged. It’s widely accepted now that Lewinsky was the victim of a higher coordinated bully campaign. Shameful. And that goes to those posting here relentlessly trying to deflect blame away from where it is deserved—her diabolical mother, her mother’s abusive boyfriend, the legal system, UPenn.

I'm the pp who said that I don't think Mackenzie deserves all the blame. She had a long psychiatric hospitalization. She definitely came from a dysfunctional family.
This doesn't excuse her from manipulating the system, but it doesn't mean that she was the victim in every possible way imaginable either.

The real truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

DP. Oh, agreed.

And I also don't want someone with that history -- and who is still doubling down and attacking others -- getting any support for moving into politics or being licensed to work over vulnerable people. She needs support for dealing with her history and damage. Her mother may well need to address her own issues, too.

But in no way does any of this make her either ready or somehow deserving of power or responsibility. She needs help.

She definitely needs help. Our society tends to like to paint people as angels or monsters. She can be sick and need kindness, not necessarily for the reasons she claims to need them, but for other reasons.

Frankly it's kind of tragic that someone so intelligent has managed to ruin their life like this at the age of 25. It wouldn't surprise me if they were familial issues contributing as well. This would not have gotten this far if her mother had spoken up way earlier.

Yeah. I don't have any problem believing there are few (if any) healthy people in this story. That includes the Penn profs who have been supporting her, as much as the mother.

I don't think we need to demonize someone to acknowledge that they did not qualify for a position that they achieved by untruthful means. You don't even have to "prove" it was deliberate to acknowledge that. I do think some posters here elide the two -- as if saying she shouldn't have X means you are either demonizing her, or that you are saying she was evil. But I think they think eliding it makes their argument stronger, somehow.

Nope. Just not qualified for it, by the specific qualifications of entry.

Except she was. By Penn and Questbridge’s very definitions. There’s no disputing that.

Why was it that the Rhodes committee asked her to withdraw her application, again?

So you agree she met the definition at Penn? The place she is suing for wrongfully withholding her MSW?

She’s lucky Penn didn’t claw back the bachelor’s too and sue her for all the aid she got.

I agree with this. Other students have lost their credits for far less.

Right, people are losing their degrees over all kind of trivial stuff

[Anonymous]

This is mighty incriminating...

29.) Additionally, I partially support my younger sister, who will be starting college soon. I will then have the additional strain of working to put her through school and ensure her basic living expenses are met. Because she also has special needs, additional resources such as medication, testing, learning aids, and more create further expenses throughout this process.” She wrote the same in her 2018-2019 PFAS form. Ms. Shaw told OSC that Mackenzie has not provided, and that there was no reason to believe it would become necessary to provide, “basic living expenses” or medical costs for Cat (who does have learning challenges). Asked about this, Mackenzie told OSC (and it was separately confirmed) that Mackenzie set up a 529 account for her sister to use towards higher education. OSC understands that the account has approximately $6,000 in it at this point. According to Mackenzie, the seed money for this account may have come from her biological father, although she does not quite remember.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please run that long post through some identification software and compare it to some of Mackenzie's previous writing?

Hey loser, you do it. This story reminds me of Monica Lewinsky. Essentially a kid held to a higher standard than the adults and institutions around her. And we know how well that story aged. It’s widely accepted now that Lewinsky was the victim of a higher coordinated bully campaign. Shameful. And that goes to those posting here relentlessly trying to deflect blame away from where it is deserved—her diabolical mother, her mother’s abusive boyfriend, the legal system, UPenn.

I'm the pp who said that I don't think Mackenzie deserves all the blame. She had a long psychiatric hospitalization. She definitely came from a dysfunctional family.
This doesn't excuse her from manipulating the system, but it doesn't mean that she was the victim in every possible way imaginable either.

The real truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

Unless I missed something, I have never seen it reported that she had a psychiatric hospitalization.

Unless otherwise ordered by a court or released by the patient, medical records are sealed. So how can anyone know what she was hospitalized for other than what’s on the public record.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow, now we're escalating the smear campaign and attacking journalists? A 22 or 23 year old schemer did not lie to anyone, it was Rhodes, Penn and now a newsroom conspiring against her, pressuring her, and twisting her words? Hahaha. Good luck telling these ducktales to a jury of commoners who are going to smell this rich con artist from a mile away.

You know you’re not actually making a substantive contribution to the discussion, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone please run that long post through some identification software and compare it to some of Mackenzie's previous writing?

Hey loser, you do it. This story reminds me of Monica Lewinsky. Essentially a kid held to a higher standard than the adults and institutions around her. And we know how well that story aged. It’s widely accepted now that Lewinsky was the victim of a higher coordinated bully campaign. Shameful. And that goes to those posting here relentlessly trying to deflect blame away from where it is deserved—her diabolical mother, her mother’s abusive boyfriend, the legal system, UPenn.

I'm the pp who said that I don't think Mackenzie deserves all the blame. She had a long psychiatric hospitalization. She definitely came from a dysfunctional family.
This doesn't excuse her from manipulating the system, but it doesn't mean that she was the victim in every possible way imaginable either.

The real truth is likely somewhere in the middle.

Unless I missed something, I have never seen it reported that she had a psychiatric hospitalization.

Unless otherwise ordered by a court or released by the patient, medical records are sealed. So how can anyone know what she was hospitalized for other than what’s on the public record.

I also have seen that claim anywhere other than here. Such seems like someone with an ace to grind is trying to start rumors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is mighty incriminating...

29.) Additionally, I partially support my younger sister, who will be starting college soon. I will then have the additional strain of working to put her through school and ensure her basic living expenses are met. Because she also has special needs, additional resources such as medication, testing, learning aids, and more create further expenses throughout this process.” She wrote the same in her 2018-2019 PFAS form. Ms. Shaw told OSC that Mackenzie has not provided, and that there was no reason to believe it would become necessary to provide, “basic living expenses” or medical costs for Cat (who does have learning challenges). Asked about this, Mackenzie told OSC (and it was separately confirmed) that Mackenzie set up a 529 account for her sister to use towards higher education. OSC understands that the account has approximately $6,000 in it at this point. According to Mackenzie, the seed money for this account may have come from her biological father, although she does not quite remember.

People keep posting this, why is this incriminating? OSC is not an official organization is it part of Penn, and frankly they have a vested interest in smearing her. And even do all they can say is that they have no reason to believe her.

I find it very plausible that an abused kid would be trying to look out for a sibling.