MIT Admissions Dean: How NOT to Work Your Way Up The Ladder

MIT has announced that its Dean of Admissions, Marilee Jones, resigned from her position on Monday, after they confronted her about her resume. The lies that Marilee Jones wrote in her resume, 28 years ago, came back to bite her and has ended her professional career at MIT. But, what prompted MIT to investigate her qualifications after almost 3 decades of her work history there? A single phone call from an anonymous source to another dean. 

When Marilee Jones handed in her resume for an executive assistant’s position at the prestigious school, MIT probably felt that she was over qualified for the job. Her resume was impressive. She listed 3 degrees, one from Union College, one from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and another from Albany Medical College. Now, if you were the one hiring her, would you turn her down for the position of an executive assistant? With three degrees, she obviously had the ability and intelligence to meet the qualifications of the job. Would you have checked out the facts on her resume before hiring her? Maybe you would have, but I suspect that wouldn’t have knowing that the qualifications for the job, don’t require any degrees.

So, when I read the news coverage of Marilee Jones, I thought “So, she doesn’t have a degree, so what? She apparently had the knowledge and skills to do all of jobs she’s held at MIT for the last 28 years.” But, then I thought about what was at stake for the college, in terms of who the organization would have to answer to about the whole situation. What would MIT say to the other faculty members of MIT, or the students or parents of the students at MIT?  Keeping Marilee Jones in place as the Dean of Admissions would put them at risk of being sued by anyone in those groups. Keeping Marilee Jones in place would destroy their credibility in the eyes of everyone else in the world, including other educational institutions and the Institute’s financial backers. 

Since 1998, Marilee Jones, has been the Dean of Admissions at MIT. (Click here to see the MIT announcement after Jones was hired.) As the DOA, Marilee Jones had the authority to refuse the candidacy of any student who applied to MIT, if that student did not meeting the school’s criteria for enrollment. Because of that, MIT could not then make an exception for Jones, who also didn’t meet the educational criteria for being their Dean of Admissions.

An interesting twist to this story is that Jones has been urging parents, students, colleges to “lower the flame” regarding the admissions process at colleges. She says that too many young people are getting stress-related health problems, because they have too much pressure in their lives. She believes in the subject so strongly that she co-authored a book called “Less Stress, More Success: A New Approach to Guiding Your Teen Through College Admissions and Beyond”. She has also been a speaker in high-demand at college admissions events. It is any wonder? Who would know about the topic more thoroughly than Marilee Jones; someone who has lived the subject matter for the last 28 years?

In my opinion, Jones is living proof about what living a stressful life is all about. Lying on your resume is one thing. Living that lie for 28 years, worrying if today is going to be the day that someone finds out it’s a lie, is another. I suspect that the students she wrote about her book are not the only one who have experienced stress over college. Perhaps, that is why the title to her book includes the words “and Beyond”? In an interview with the Associate Press, Jones said “We’re raising a generation of kids trained to please adults. Every day kids should have time when they’re doing something where they’re not being judged. That’s the big difference with this generation. They’re being judged and graded and analyzed and assessed at every turn. It’s too much pressure for them.” Although I agree with her theory, I think that Jones has probably felt that way for a long time too.

Jones was asked to resign because her actions go “against her being a model for integrity that an admissions director sets,” Clay said. “It represents a very, very long deception, when there were opportunities to correct the record. This is not a mistake or an accident or an oversight.”

But, despite the fact that Marilee Jones, made a mistake when she was young by putting fake degrees on her resume, her work history and her colleagues speak well of her.

• Bruce Poch, Dean of Admissions, Pomona College, CA. - “She’s been such a high impact and good influence on all of these admissions conversations. This hurts.”
  

• Lloyd Thacker, the founder of the Education Conservancy, a group also trying to tone down the admissions process, said Jones “has had a very positive impact on the lives of many students and families and has brought inspiration to the professions.” Her resignation “in no way discredits the value of her work,” he said.

• MIT Chancellor Phil Clay said.“We have to uphold the integrity of the institution, because that’s what we’ve been trying to sell and she’s our chief spokesperson on that,”  It’s “regrettable, ironic, sad, but that’s where we are.”
  

Although, I don’t know Marilee Jones, like her colleagues, I think she deserves credit for being able to move her executive assistant’s job all the way up the rungs of the admission department’s ladder. I also think that having her secret finally exposed will help her to begin to live a more peaceful life. Jones undoubtedly put in tremendous work, effort, and study over the last 28 years. I am sure that if she applied for learning credits from a college, that she would have earned at least an associates degree for her work and life experiences. What she achieved was not handed to her, she worked and she learned what she needed to know to get her job done.

Marilee Jones has graduated from the school of hard knocks and is standing in the unemployment line. But, I don’t feel too sorry for her. She’s not a dumb lady. She’ll do just fine. But, I’d love to be a fly on the wall when she goes on job interviews. I think it would interesting to hear her side of the story. I guess I’ll just have to wait for her next book.

Comments

[CMK]

Re "Although I agree with her theory, I think that Jones has probably felt that way for a long time too."

You speak as though that weakened her case. It doesn't. It shows she means it. And her career is proof that you don't (always) need the formal perfection to be excellent. Proof of her point. I don't think she's felt guilty for 28 years. Rather proud. She should be. When the system doesn't admit you even though you'd excel at the job, it's your obligation to cheat.

The only reason she was fired was that it was just impossibly risque for the dean of admissions to have faked her admissions. Too impossibly risque for even a smart place. It's obvious that it should have been rationalized - the result would have been a superior rationale for judging qualifications. But MIT wasn't brave enough for that. Firing people in situations like this is just an easy way out.