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

[Anonymous]

God bless the snitch(es) who dimed her out.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I haven't read most of this thread but I just want to say that, with Questbridge, I wonder if the high school doesn't have some blame. My kid was an abuse survivor and included that in their college essays years ago. The MCPS guidance counselor called me and verified the information. In a way, I was thankful because he later told us that several of the colleges called to verify the information also.

I posted this. Just to clarify, he didn't just verify with me. He actually called the elementary school to verify it.

My hunch is the more elite schools on her Questbridge list smelled the fictitious crap from a mile away. Only Penn was duped.

Who’s more elite than Penn and Oxford?

HYPSMC and Oxford.

So your answer is . . . Almost no one.

And Oxford didn’t catch it either.

[Anonymous]

Oxford didn't catch it because they no doubt presumed she had been fully vetted by the dumbbells at Questbridge, Penn SAS, and Penn MSW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oxford didn't catch it because they no doubt presumed she had been fully vetted by the dumbbells at Questbridge, Penn SAS, and Penn MSW.

I'd bet anything HYPS were on her Questbridge list and they all smelled the baloney, yet Penn fell for it multiple times, including for her study abroad programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oxford didn't catch it because they no doubt presumed she had been fully vetted by the dumbbells at Questbridge, Penn SAS, and Penn MSW.

DP. Okay. And she still lied. None of this excuses her behavior. You know that, right?

[Anonymous]

I wonder if Oxford still wants here after this? And how is she paying for that? Oxford all ok with failed Rhodes scholar?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if Oxford still wants here after this? And how is she paying for that? Oxford all ok with failed Rhodes scholar?

She never went to Oxford. Are you kidding? Imagine what the British tabloids would have done to an American social climber/con artist who lied her way into Oxford. And her dad’s an 80s/90s soap actor? They would have eaten this up.

[Anonymous]

Can you defenders please explain this one away????

Read this part of the complaint:

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.

So she tried to scheme more financial aid out of Penn by using a special needs half sister who lives with the dad she allegedly has no relationship with?????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From the Penn response (TLDR: it wasn't the mother who outed her - NYT columnist Nick Kristof did her in!):
"Fierceton’s Story is Exposed
44. The Philadelphia Inquirer story, published just one day after Fierceton was awarded the Rhodes Scholarship, spread her false story outside the confines of faculty inboxes and admissions folders. Written by Wendy Ruderman, it began: “Mackenzie Fierceton grew up poor, cycling through the rocky child welfare system. She bounced from one foster home to the next.” Nicholas Kristof, a New York times journalist, retweeted the Ruderman article. On November 23, Fierceton sent a tweet to Mr. Kristof, thanking him for retweeting the article.
45. Former acquaintances in Fierceton’s hometown took note as the story circulated around the country. On the same day that Kristof retweeted the article, Penn received an anonymous email. The author first noted their relationship as a former friend and classmate of Fierceton’s (then-Mackenzie Morrison), and offered this insight: I was very surprised at the inaccurate portrayal of her life. … Where I strongly support her activism surrounding the foster care system, I find her claims disheartening. Growing up in the foster care system, being a first generation student or growing up in a low income household brings real hardship … That hardship cannot be attributed to someone who had the privilege to live in a graduate school level educated home and go to a private, college prep school. It pains me to see the girl we all supported, housed, and rallied behind when she left her mom’s house to falsely claim the hardship of others for her own gain.
46. The anonymous email was only the beginning. People from the St. Louis area who knew Fierceton called Penn, identifying themselves by name and refuting Fierceton’s portrayal as a low-income, first generation student who grew up in foster care."

This Kristof tweet exposes another one of her lies in that claimed she was so embarrassed by the (false/exaggerated) portrayals in the media that she tried to get them corrected but ran into a "brick wall." She personally responded to Kristof's tweet and then Kristof responded back hoping they could cross paths.

[Anonymous]

Kristof mentions her Twitter handle, but it looks deleted or inactive. Or she might have changed it to another handle, which appears to have selected that "Only approved followers can see" the tweets.

Yes, it is apparent that the brick wall was massive and unyielding. I'm sure she clarified everything before she deleted it.

[Anonymous]

This is why Penn wanted to correct the story, even though it's a bad look on them. People come to distrust the entire apparatus, and it makes it harder for the other kids using the programs.

[Anonymous]

I believe this young lady was being groomed to become the next "it" congresswoman, likely as a rep from PA.

[Anonymous]

Right. But it would eventually have come out, especially if someone was willing and invested to send anonymous (or not) tips -- that wouldn't have gone away.

They had to bite the bullet and take the hit. And as for her, she'll makes things worse for herself by digging in deeper. I suspect she's never not been able to talk her way out of a situation and into what she wanted eventually, and she probably can't come to terms with it being over.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Her claiming she's a poor foster care kid is akin to trying weed at a party in 12th grade and telling everyone for the rest of your life you're recovered drug addict.

ZERO CHANCE she EVER disclosed to anyone on these scholarship committees her mom is a successful medical doctor. I would bet anything.

Did you read the long legal analysis post that I wrote earlier? It's a fact that she was in foster care, and thus she's legally allowed to report herself as low-income. She had no need to disclose to anyone that her mom was a successful medical doctor.

Now, you can dispute that she put herself in foster care, or whatever else some of these posters are baselessly alleging, but that has not been proven with facts.

Yes, her mom was a successful medical doctor. So what? She was in foster care, so her biological family's financial status is not material. By the way, if you actually read Penn's detailed response, they themselves state that they contacted the Questbridge CEO and asked the Questbridge CEO to review her QB app. The Questbridge CEO stated that the way she filled out her QB app was fine, and specifically that she was allowed to represent herself as low-income.

Oh, so her few months (?) in "foster care" just deleted her mom from her life? Deleted how 13 years of private school was paid? Deleted that she grew up a rich white girl with a medical doctor mom in a mansion for 17 or 18 years? Yeah, totally "justifiable" to NEVER mention ANY of that to anyone. If you're a con artist trying to steal and get over on people.

Nice rant but all irrelevant. As a legal matter, yes, her mother was out of her life whether you like it or not.

How were the last 2 years of her high school paid? I’m not aware that he mother paid for them; I expect that she did not since MF was now a ward of the state. It’s possible that the state paid for it but unlikely. More likely is that the school covered the cost with financial aid.

I saw pictures of the house she grew up in, and it is not a mansion.

The fact is that she missed the first month of her junior year of high school as the result of injury, hospitalization, and a diagnosed seizure disorder. She then had that year disrupted by the need to relocate to foster care. With that kind of disruption to her life it’s amazing that she graduated from high school much less achieve at honors level and be elected student body President. She literally spent half of her high school career, the more important half for college admissions in foster care and beyond. For those 2 years she was not at all living the life of a rich kid in a “mansion”.

She doesn’t need to justify why she didn’t mention how and where she grew up to anyone. She included the information that was required. Her high school guidance reviewed her application and endorsed it. To this day, Questbridge says that she filled it out appropriately.

Please don’t get all hysterical on us with self-righteous indignation. You have posted baseless accusations filled with exaggerations and misrepresentations. Maybe you should look yourself in the mirror instead of condemning her for the same things you’re doing.

PS - She’s not a con artist and she didn’t steal anything.

DP
No. Saying you have seizures or information that you were hospitalized for seizure-like episodes is not "a diagnosed seizure disorder." That requires actual EEG evidence of specific epileptiform patterns, which it nowhere indicates were identified.

Diagnosed seizure disorders are things such as Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, West syndrome, "benign childhood epilepsy with centrotemporal spikes," etc.

What has been made available is entirely consistent with an emotionally disturbed young woman with "non-epileptic seizures," or pseudoseizures. I'm sure it would have been named if it were an actual specific diagnosed disorder -- that's much more dramatic.

Okay. The hospital records reportedly say that she was retained there for treatment of a seizure disorder.

Is there a record available online of the actual hospital record, not a third party accounting of it? Because this is a mistake non-medical people make a lot.

If it's an actual diagnosed seizure disorder, the type is named. It would be all over the chart, especially for billing purposes. Reference to "seizure" and nothing else, especially with particularly phrasing, is a real red flag that they aren't epileptiform seizures.

(continued) This is the language I was looking for. This does not describe a diagnosed seizure disorder:

https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-dredging

Yet if you’re searching for inconsistencies between what Fierceton wrote in her admissions essay and the records, you can find them. She writes, for example, that the medical equipment in her room is there “to make sure I don’t stop breathing again.” There is no evidence that Fierceton ever required resuscitation. She writes that she had “braces stabilizing most of my body.” She had no broken bones, and it’s unclear why braces would have been required (photographs taken on her first day in the hospital show that she was placed in a neck brace initially, but her medical records say her neck had a “normal range of motion”). She was given a feeding tube, but her eating difficulties were listed as “behavioral.” According to her records, Fierceton did experience “seizure-like activity,” post-traumatic stress disorder, and post-concussion syndrome.

Most likely, she had some behaviors that looked concerning, was not responding, and got "snowed" with anti-seizure meds to try to break it. Since these were no seizures and thus not due to electrical problems in the brain, the meds didn't work until she got sedated enough to stop. At that point, she would be taken to the ICU for observation and further assessment.

I doubt she was there longer than needed to get an EEG read, which takes time and a tech.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Right. But it would eventually have come out, especially if someone was willing and invested to send anonymous (or not) tips -- that wouldn't have gone away.

They had to bite the bullet and take the hit. And as for her, she'll makes things worse for herself by digging in deeper. I suspect she's never not been able to talk her way out of a situation and into what she wanted eventually, and she probably can't come to terms with it being over.

All she has to do is pay 4k, apologize, and then she gets her MSW and moves on with her life. Penn has already stated this formally in their written response.

No idea why she feels a need to sue, it seems like such an obviously silly move.