Undergraduate Admissions Leader Resigns in Disgrace

Marilee Jones, MIT's provocative dean of admissions, resigned this week after it was revealed that she had faked her own undergraduate degree 29 years ago in order to get an entry level position at the prestigious university, according to the New York Times.

Ms. Jones will be missed. She has offered a rare sane voice in the crazed race for college admissions. The recent New York Times article detailing this years' crop of candidates noted that Harvard, Princeton and Yale now reject students with perfect 2400 SAT scores. Perfect is no longer good enough.

Ms. Jones has been urging students to calm down and get off the rat race. She counsels that some will get into the best schools -- even MIT -- without driving themselves crazy, while others can get terrific educations at schools which are less hyped. Brave words from a dean of admission. Most of her peers just keep applying the pressure that drives the rat race -- increasing the flow of applications and raising those admirable rejection rates.

It was Ms. Jones' personal failure that she lied to get a job, and then didn't clear the record as she worked her way up the ladder based on her superlative performance and growing visibility.

On the other hand, she proved beyond the slightest shadow of a doubt that her lack of a college degree has been irrelevant to her enviable success.

Wouldn't we have been better off prohibiting employers from making diplomas necessary conditions for jobs?

Any curriculum is an imperfect means to a learning achievement that can be attained in other ways, e.g., through apprenticeship or self-determined, auto-didactic learning. A diploma is no proof of capability, and the lack of a diploma is no proof of incapability.

But the diploma system closes access to advantageous positions, blocking those who for whatever reasons can't complete college. To put a fine edge on it, the diploma system is mostly the means for the reproduction of class advantage.

Ms. Jones' downfall comdemns the diploma system more than it does Ms. Jones.