In November 2020, when University of Pennsylvania graduate student Mackenzie Fierceton won the prestigious and highly competitive Rhodes scholarship to study at Oxford — one of just 32 scholars selected from a pool of 2,300 applicants — she was praised by the Ivy League school’s president in a newsletter.opportunity,” declared President Amy Gutmann of the 23-year-old from suburban St. Louis.
Fierceton identified as a first-generation, low-income student, but that was called into question during investigations at Penn and by the Rhodes committee.“There are a lot of pressures out there for applications right now,” Marco Santini, a New York-based college education consultant, told The Post. “I always try to tell students not to do the sob story because there is always someone with a sadder story.
According to the Chronicle, Fierceton lived with her mother, Carrie Morrison — a divorcée and director of breast imaging and mammography at a local hospital — “on a [suburban] tree-lined cul-de-sac with large houses and well-groomed lawns.” After the 2014 incident, Morrison was arrested and charged with two counts of felony child abuse or neglect and one count of misdemeanor assault — charges that were later dropped. An email from assistant prosecuting attorney Michael Hayes, quoted in the Chronicle, said: “The more I learned [about the case], the less certain I became about what really happened.”Getty Images/iStockphoto
The Rhodes committee questioned Fierceton about the undergraduate essay she wrote when applying to Penn. In it, she detailed her hospital stay after the alleged incident with her mother, including claims that her hair was “caked with dried blood” and her facial features were “so distorted and swollen that I cannot tell them apart.”
As the Chronicle reports: “If ‘first generation’ means the first in one’s family to attend college — the widely used, common-sense meaning — Fierceton’s answer would be plainly false.” Santini, the college consultant, noted: “On the economic side, there are so many applications to schools that it is impossible for schools to fact check everything.”
She could start writing fantasy fiction?
Ahhhhh......ahhhhh......ahhhhh.......🤔 Mackenzie Fierceton RhodesScholar PennCheats liar mackenziefierceton played the game & won. Soooooo....'don't hate the playa; hate the game'.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Source: NBCPhiladelphia - 🏆 569. / 51 Read more »
Source: WSJ - 🏆 98. / 63 Read more »
Source: ABC - 🏆 471. / 51 Read more »
Source: MarketWatch - 🏆 3. / 97 Read more »
Source: Forbes - 🏆 394. / 53 Read more »
Source: TMZ - 🏆 379. / 59 Read more »