Ex-Harvard senior charged with fabricating life history, stealing grant money

http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2010/05/by_globe_staff_60.html

oops

Oh that Richard Blumenthal...oh wait.

hah I think there's always at least one case of this happening per year in the ivies

Harvard dug deeper and learned that Wheeler was admitted to Harvard based on his false claim that he had attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from Phillips Academy in Andover.

is it really that hard for freakin harvard of all places to find this out BEFORE they admit someone?

That wouldn't be sporting, old chap.

if i sent harvard a cocktail napkin that said

JORDAN SARGENT
GRADUATE OF YALE
GRADUATE OF PENN
GRADUATE OF OXFORD
STRAIGHT A STUDENT

would they be all "oh well can't argue with that!!" and let me in?

Harvard has a multi-multi-billion$ endowment fund. Harvard has graduates in every power center in the USA. Harvard is like the fucking mafia Godfather of academia for godsakes. They will have this kid's guts for garters. Don't let the funny gowns fool you; you do not trifle with those goons.

why the long face

if i sent harvard a cocktail napkin that said

JORDAN SARGENT
GRADUATE OF YALE
GRADUATE OF PENN
GRADUATE OF OXFORD
STRAIGHT A STUDENT

would they be all "oh well can't argue with that!!" and let me in?

― J0rdan S., Monday, May 17, 2010 9:25 PM (1 minute ago)

u forgot "ILX POSTER"

eh not to be cap'n save-a-john-harvard but admissions officers at these places deal with hundreds to thousands of apps per cycle, in a short amount of time, if you're a good faker I think it's plausible that you would pass muster

i think after they decide which few thousand people they're going to admit -- or even after a fewer thousand people choose to attend harvard, they could run a quick background check to make sure that you are who you say you are and you aren't going to be stealing thousands of dollars -- it's not like harvard is ohio state or something

sounds like if dude hadn't plagiarized he could've graduated with a sweet Harvard diploma.

When I first saw the thread title, I thought it said "Ex-Harvard senior charged with stealing Amy Grant's money". Whew! Glad we're not going there!

how many jobs actually ask for your college diploma? it prolly woulda been easier to just add a Harvard BA to his resume.

sounds like if dude hadn't plagiarized he could've graduated with a sweet Harvard diploma.

OTM. The real point to this story is knowing when to stop, something this dude obviously did not learn while he was at Harvard.

so that's what happened to wrinklepaws

http://1to10reviews.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/jim_office.png

In his applications, Wheeler allegedly falsely claimed to be interning at McLean and included a recommendation from the Harvard professor who first discovered his alleged fabrication, according to prosecutors.

http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj101/mjgalleg/gangsta.jpg

/sounds like if dude hadn't plagiarized he could've graduated with a sweet Harvard diploma./

OTM. The real point to this story is knowing when to stop, something this dude obviously did not learn while he was at Harvard.

^^^this

I love this bit in the article: Harvard started looking at Wheeler last September, and later told him he was facing internal discipline.

Why is this giving me visuals of truncheons being shoved up nether regions?

no idea

Fair enough.

internal discipline = getting yelled at by the administrative board, who may or may not use truncheons (I have no idea)

Am I remembering right that he claimed to be the co-author of numerous books, too? I mean, come on! Know when to quit, genius.

"I see this letter dated last week from our own Stephen Jay Gould praises you highly."

"Yes, it was very kind of him to do that."

"He's been dead for some years now."

"...Oh hey, look at that!"

"That's why he signed it 'Stephen Jay Gould, Zombie'."

"Damn, he's good!"

Also from Boston Globe today: Man allegedly offered to trade baby for 40-ounce beers. Another proud day in beantown.

come on now, that happened in Northampton

or rather, Chicopee (tay in de way)

fair, fair. but this: When police arrived, Brace was allegedly hiding the stroller behind a dumpster while his girlfriend, who was inside the store during the incident, walked away with the baby.

that would have been my reaction if I had just scored two 40's at a gas station

poor, oblivious girlfriend

(this got posted on the rolling "you are a dumbass" thread too, I think)

http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/75025/adam-wheelers-resume

In fact, Adam Wheeler recently applied for an internship at the magazine; specifically, an internship for our literary section. We did not accept him. Click here for a PDF of his rather remarkable two-page resume, in which he claims that (a) he's contracted to write several books; (b) he can speak French, Old English, Classical Armenian, and Old Persian; and (c) he's in demand on the lecture circuit. Again, the whole thing is here.

lol Tyler Cowen: "Why are none of the sources reporting how well he actually did at Harvard and elsewhere? Isn't that an interesting question? How much would the world differ if Harvard reserved a fifth of its entering class for those individuals who showed the most talent for fraud? I don't mean that question in a cynical light, it is one genuine way of trying to think about how education adds value to labor market outcomes."

I'm totally going to tell people I speak Old Persian

does the "Bread Loaf school of English" actually exist?

http://www.middlebury.edu/blse

ta-da

Old English? You kiddin me?

wait that's not some sort of bonsai kitten parody site or

Would also be very interested in this guy's results while at Harvard. Loaded information perhaps?

pointless information, given the amount of cheating dude did

cowen otm tho, this guy is a better fit for a finance job than most of the legit harvard grads

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41RH3Z5MVYL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

bluffing lecturers vs cheating, take ur pic

“Black Milk and the Stairway to Heaven: Bedros Tourian, Paul Celan, and Anselm Kiefer”

lol found it

http://www.hamazkayin-boston.org/archive.html

Thursday, December 4, 2008 - 8:00 p.m.

"Black Milk and the Stairway to Heaven: Bedros Tourian, Paul Celan, and Anselm Kiefer"

A Lecture by Prof. James R. Russell
Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Harvard University
NAASR Center - 395 Concord Ave., Belmont, MA
Free admission. Reception to follow

Contact:
Please contact (617)775-4633 or i✧✧✧@hamazkayin-bos✧✧✧.o✧✧ for
more info.

xp: right, but bluffing lecturers still requires putting together and defending an argument, whereas this guy's pattern points towards him being a sociopathic magpie who cuts and runs when he's challenged

maybe don't rip off papers given by profs at your school, at least?

pointless information, given the amount of cheating dude did

I think what he's trying to suggest is that being such a capable cheater+bullshitter is a sign of intelligence/capability

Wondering what the professor named as a coauthor on 4 of his 6 forthcoming books (!) thinks

this guy overreached in some pretty stupid ways though, so maybe not

I have a special place in my heart for hucksters, charlatans, and frauds. but only when they're defrauding banks and stuff

what do you think harvard is?

a bank...of intelligence

I think what he's trying to suggest is that being such a capable cheater+bullshitter is a sign of intelligence/capability

I don't disagree; I'm just saying that the grades themselves are meaningless because they aren't a reflection of dude's ability to construct and present an argument; they're a reflection of someone else's work.

yeah but it takes a certain measure of intelligence to recognize that other dudes' work of being a structurally sound and plausible argument

eh? or just had a flashy title

How often are grades a reflection of your ability, and how often are they just a measure of your regurgitation & windowdressing skills?

let's have his grade average, i say.

“Prospero’s Maps: Cartography, Location, and Invention in The Tempest”
“The Body in the Garden: The Metapoetics of Husbandry from More to Marvell”
“Not Penshurst: Enclosure, Arcadia, and the Panegyric of Place”

^^ very fashionable!!

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2010/5/18/wheeler-school-high-caesar/

wau at this dude's emails

trying very hard to not make "[obvious ILXor]? Is that you?" joeks

“He seemed to have a lot of potential and ability, so, from our perspective, this is a shock that a young man with such promise would end up doing these things,” said Kevin Fitzgerald, who was the principal of Caesar Rodney during the time of Wheeler’s attendance and is now the superintendent of the school district. “What went wrong that happened in his life to lead him to try to fool so many people? What makes a person do what he did?”

this is hilarious. dude, the "had such promise" part IS THE SAME THING AS the "end up doing these things" part. he had no promise!! he was lying!! that's the whole deal.

that said, it is a little bit sad that our wild frontier huckster PT barnum era is over, and the whole land has been mapped and professionalized and all that. this guy should be running a string of saloons and bankrolling a senate campaign or something.

his story reminds me of:

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/features/2008/04/10/yale-no-stranger-to-application-fraud/

http://flathatnews.com/content/ex-yale-student-charged-fraud

(oh whoops, i see 'caesar rodney' was his high school? what the hell kind of name is that)

they are acolytes of the forgotten Dangerfield Empire

“[At MIT], I was, to put it poorly, suckled upon the teat of disdain. That being said (fortified by a reflexive snort), I was inspired therby [sic] to apply to Harvard, where the humanities, in short, are not, simpliciter, a source of opprobrium,” Wheeler wrote.

Ow, my head.

commas ahoy

The man has style! (snorts reflexively)

oh jesus god

thesaurus.reference.com

"My own, brief, assessment of my character is that I am sententious, crypto-tendentious, slightly pedantic with a streak of contrarianism, a fascination with any pedagogical approach to Shakespeare, and a decent sense of humor."

::coughJAGGERcough::

snorts, computer, therby, the internet

“[At MIT], I was, to put it poorly, suckled upon the teat of disdain. That being said (fortified by a reflexive snort), I was inspired therby [sic] to apply to Harvard, where the humanities, in short, are not, simpliciter, terrible, gay, homo, awful, house, music.” Wheeler wrote.

trying very hard to not make "[obvious ILXor]? Is that you?" joeks

― Have a slice of wine! (HI DERE), Thursday, May 20, 2010 2:23 AM (8 hours ago)

ha, whoops, sorry DP

=)

Alexei Santana to thread

haha that's okay, someone was going to explicitly go there eventually

haha, this story totez remindz me of this d00d:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QL2Zxpi1Ts

those sentences are sort of familiar from papers by some of my students who think stringing together a lot of big words and dependent clauses is what making an argument/point is about. it's a really weird and sad misapprehension, a confusion of some aspects of the appearance of knowledge with knowledge itself.

i mean the harvard kid, not the (amazing) stanley-kubrick-audition guy. why does that guy keep looking up at the ceiling btw?

(oh whoops, i see 'caesar rodney' was his high school? what the hell kind of name is that)

Where were you in '99?

http://www.coinblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/delaware-state-quarter-300x299.png

what books are on the bookshelf in that picture of gangsta hos and a bong?

walkthrough to final fantasy 7.

ws btw

I spent abt six months after dropping out of university cramming long words inappropriately into everything I said. If only somebody had told me I should do the same to my CV and make myself a beautiful new career as a fraudster!