> Dean at M.I.T. Resigns Ending a 28-Year Lie
>
> By TAMAR LEWIN
> Published: April 27, 2007
> 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.
>
> Ms. Jones, 55, originally from Albany, had on various occasions
> represented herself as having degrees from three upstate New York
> institutions: Albany Medical College, Union College and Rensselaer
> Polytechnic Institute. In fact, she had no degrees from any of those
> places, or anywhere else, M.I.T. officials said.
>
> A spokesman for Rensselaer said Ms. Jones had not graduated there,
> though she did attend as a part-time nonmatriculated student during
> the 1974-75 school year. The other colleges said they had no record of
> her.
>
> Phillip L. Clay, M.I.T.'s chancellor, said in an interview that a
> college degree was probably not required for Ms. Jones's entry-level
> job in the admissions office when she arrived in 1979. And by the time
> she was appointed admissions dean in 1997, Professor Clay said, she
> had already been in the admissions office for many years, and
> apparently little effort was made to check what she had earlier
> presented as her credentials.
>
> "In the future," he said, "we will take a big lesson from this
> experience."
>
> 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."
>
> Professor Clay said the dean for undergraduate education, Daniel
> Hastings, received information 10 days ago questioning Ms. Jones's
> academic background. M.I.T. officials would not say who had provided
> the information.
>
> "There are some mistakes people can make for which 'I'm sorry' can be
> accepted, but this is one of those matters where the lack of integrity
> is sufficient all by itself," Professor Clay said. "This is a very sad
> situation for her and for the institution. We have obviously placed a
> lot of trust in her."
>
> On the campus, where Ms. Jones was widely admired, almost revered, for
> her humor, outspokenness and common sense, students and faculty
> members alike seemed both saddened and shocked.
>
> "It's like a Thomas Hardy tragedy, because she did so much good, but
> something she did long ago came back and trumped it," said one friend,
> Leslie C. Perelman, director of the M.I.T. program in writing and
> humanistic studies.
>
> Mike Hurley, a freshman chemistry student, said, "It was surprising,"
> adding, "Everyone who was admitted here probably knows her, at least
> her name."
>
> Mr. Hurley said that the admissions office had been unusually
> accessible, with Ms. Jones's "bright" personality and blogs for
> incoming students.
> "Whenever someone's integrity is questioned," he said, "it sets a bad
> example, but I feel like the students can get past that and look at
> what she's done for us as a whole."
>
> Rachel Ellman, who studies aerospace engineering, said, "I feel like
> she's irreplaceable."
>
> Ms. Jones had received the institute's highest honor for
> administrators, the M.I.T. Excellence Award for Leading Change, and
> many college admissions officers and high school college counselors
> said yesterday that whatever her personal shortcomings, her efforts
> deserved respect.
>
> "She's been working and presenting a lot of important ideas about our
> business," said Rod Skinner, director of college counseling at Milton
> Academy, the Massachusetts prep school. "What I'm hoping is that the
> quality of the research and the book will hold up."
>
> Ms. Jones was hired by the admissions office in 1979 to recruit young
> women, who at the time made up only 17 percent of the institute's
> undergraduates, compared with nearly half today.
>
> Since she entered the field, admissions to M.I.T. and other elite
> institutions have become increasingly competitive, and she made her
> mark with her efforts to turn down the flame of competition.
>
> Among other things, she told students that they did not need perfect
> SAT scores to get into M.I.T. She also redesigned the institute's
> application form, leaving less space for students to list their
> extracurricular activities, so as not to imply that every student
> needed 10 activities to fill the 10 lines that used to be there.
>
> Competition remains fierce, though. For the coming fall, M.I.T.
> accepted 12 percent of 12,443 applicants.
>
> Those who attended this month's events for admitted students said Ms.
> Jones had been in good spirits, especially at a Saturday night finale.
> There, Ms. Jones, who in younger days was a torch singer at upstate
> New York clubs, took part in a "battle of the bands," singing, "You
> Can't Always Get What You Want."