Marilee Jones, the dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became well known for urging stressed-out students competing for elite colleges to calm down and stop trying to be perfect. Yesterday she admitted that she had fabricated her own educational credentials, and resigned after nearly three decades at M.I.T. Officials of the institute said she did not have even an undergraduate degree.“I misrepresented my academic degrees when I first applied to M.I.T. 28 years ago and did not have the courage to correct my résumé when I applied for my current job or at any time since,” Ms. Jones said in a statement posted on the institute’s Web site. “I am deeply sorry for this and for disappointing so many in the M.I.T. community and beyond who supported me, believed in me, and who have given me extraordinary opportunities.”
Ms. Jones said that she would not make any other public comment “at this personally difficult time” and that she hoped her privacy would be respected...
...Since last fall, Ms. Jones had been making speeches around the country to promote her book, “Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond,” written with a pediatrician, Dr. Kenneth R. Ginsburg. The book had added to her reputation as a kind of guru of the movement to tame the college admissions frenzy.
“Less Stress, More Success” addresses not only the pressure to be perfect but also a need to live with integrity.“Holding integrity is sometimes very hard to do because the temptation may be to cheat or cut corners,” it says. “But just remember that ‘what goes around comes around,’ meaning that life has a funny way of giving back what you put out.”...
Ms. Jones's confession, by the way, did not arise out of her own "hold on intergrity." Somebody snitched.
There are no indications that Ms. Jones' sorrow over her profitable masquerade is so deep that she will be returning any of her salary or profits from her book.
Nor did this New York Times story give us the TV schedule for when we can see Ms. Jones on Oprah and Dr. Phil. But I'd bet the house that we will.
