# What happens if you lie your way into school? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 7, 2011, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-lie-your-way-into-school/605419 "2011-12-07T22:20:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-lie-your-way-into-school/605419/21 "2011-12-18T21:45:35Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > Well, I have a friend who forged a reference letter to get into an Ivy (which I will not name). As he was graduating a member of the admissions committee told him it was one of the most effective letters he had ever seen and was the only thing that got him in (I assume his HS transcript was mediocre at best). But he graduated with honors. When he told the admissions guy that he had written that letter, he described the guy going white, but nothing was ever done about it. What could they do? He had graduated with honors and that was that. He went to Princeton for grad school and finished a PhD in two years (the course requirements were minimal in those days) based largely on a rewrite of his undergrad thesis (which was an extraordinary piece of work to be sure and well worth a PhD). He had a long and successful career and retired just a couple years ago. > > It seems to me that no matter how you got in, what you do there is, in the end, the only thing that matters. I don’t understand how you can say he didn’t earn his degree. This guy stinks. He is a con man’s con man. He is the kind of person who would claim to have been abducted by ETI aliens with real intent to decieve, and to profit from the deception. And I do not know about his undergraduate work, but if his graduate thesis was a mere rewrite of his undergraduate thesis, then no, he did \*not \*earn his PhD degree, and it is too bad if it is too late for Princeton to rescind it, assuming the asshole actually ever set foot on the Princeton campus. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-lie-your-way-into-school/605419/22 "2011-12-18T22:24:59Z")
> [@colonial](#): > > This guy stinks. He is a con man’s con man. He is the kind of person who > would claim to have been abducted by ETI aliens with real intent to decieve, > and to profit from the deception. > > And I do not know about his undergraduate work, but if his graduate thesis > was a mere rewrite of his undergraduate thesis, then no, he did \*not \*earn > his PhD degree, and it is too bad if it is too late for Princeton to rescind it, > assuming the asshole actually ever set foot on the Princeton campus. Doesn’t make sense. What the heck is an “undergraduate thesis”? ---
**Author:** ![colonial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/34f0e0/32.png) [@colonial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/colonial)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-lie-your-way-into-school/605419/23 "2011-12-18T22:52:06Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Doesn’t make sense. > > What the heck is an “undergraduate thesis”? Some US colleges used to require all seniors to write a thesis; maybe some still do. A thesis has also been a traditional requirement for certain undergraduate honors degrees. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-lie-your-way-into-school/605419/24 "2011-12-18T23:08:17Z")
My undergrad school requires a senior thesis for graduation: > **[New College of Florida](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_College_of_Florida)** > > New College of Florida is a public liberal arts college in Sarasota, Florida. It was founded in 1960 as a private institution known simply as New College, spent several years merged into the University of South Florida, and in 2001 became an autonomous college, the eleventh independent school of the State University System of Florida as the honors college for the state system. Upon achieving independence, the school adopted its current name: New College of Florida. > As an honors college, the coll... ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [December 18, 2011, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-lie-your-way-into-school/605419/25 "2011-12-18T23:36:28Z")
If you are going fake your way into college, wouldn’t it be simpler to use a fake transcript to get the job of your choice and cut out the middle man? ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-lie-your-way-into-school/605419/26 "2011-12-19T21:35:42Z")
A close friend of mine lied about which (Chinese) university she graduated from when she applied for graduate school in Canada. She didn’t think they would try to verify with the original school. Apparently she was wrong and they kicked her out midway through her first semester and she ended up going to a different Canadian university instead. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-happens-if-you-lie-your-way-into-school/605419.md?page=1)