Harvard University is dealing with the embarrassing fallout surrounding student Adam Wheeler, whose transcripts, letters of recommendation and other accolades used to gain admission to the school are now proven to be forgeries.
Wheeler pleaded guilty to 20 charges laid against him in court in mid-December, including misdemeanor and felony counts of larceny, identity fraud, falsifying an endorsement or approval, and pretending to hold a degree, according to Harvard’s campus newspaper, the Crimson.
“It seems crazy to me that someone could deceive the admissions committee like this,” said Will McMillan, a second-year Harvard student.
“When I applied, I had to submit letters of recommendation, essays, and full grade reports, and I had to go for an interview with a Harvard alum. Nothing that I experienced through my Harvard application led me to believe that the process was not completely sound, and my roommates tell me the same thing about their experiences.”
That Wheeler’s application was able to escape careful scrutiny is troubling to many in the Harvard community, especially considering the wide range of obvious mistakes and inconsistencies present in the documents.
Among other things, Wheeler claimed to have aced 16 Advanced Placement exams, to be proficient in Old Persian, and to have attended the prestigious Phillips Academy for four years and MIT for a few semesters, with numerous falsified letters from his supposed teachers recommending him for admittance.
Although the Harvard website states that “Most applications are read by two or more members of the Admissions Committee, and are considered very carefully in a series of committee meetings where a majority vote is required for admission,” the inflated claims of Wheeler’s application managed to slip through this approval process unnoticed.
In light of this, certain members of the public are rallying behind Wheeler, and taking indignant jabs at the elite establishment that admitted him.
“If the Harvard admittance board wasn’t so exclusive, and so conceited about the types of people they want to admit, this student wouldn’t have had to take such extreme measures to gain entry,” said Emily Wright, a first-year student at Sheridan College, whose failed childhood dream was to attend the university.
On Facebook there is a group called “Free Adam Wheeler!” whose contributors praise Wheeler’s call for light punishment on his behalf.
“This guy should be slapped with a fine and that's it,” posted Carey Pierce, from Altoona, Penn. “He didn't cheat little old ladies out of their life savings, he cheated Harvard out of an education. Harvard should have checked everything out like normal schools do. When I applied to college they checked, double-checked and triple-checked everything.”
In fact, part of Wheeler’s scheme did involve swindling about $45,000 worth of scholarships, grants, and financial aid out of the university by plagiarizing reports and submitting false letters of recommendation. This money might have been awarded to worthier candidates, had Wheeler not siphoned the funds into his own wallet, as Associate Justice Diane Kottmyer observed at Wheeler’s trial.
The court has sentenced Wheeler to a 10-year probation, and he has been ordered to repay the funds he garnered illegitimately.
No representative of Harvard could be reached for comment, but school spokespeople have told news outlets they are taking measures to bolster the university’s defenses against similar future infiltrations