A fraudulent applicant for study at Oxford has pleaded guilty to twenty counts of larceny, identity fraud, falsifying an endorsement or approval and pretending to hold a degree. Adam Wheeler, 23, was sentenced to two and a half years in jail, suspended for ten years.
Wheeler fabricated his SAT scores and forged documents that enabled him to attain a place at Harvard. He won several prizes by dint of a CV in which he claimed that he had written two books, co-authored another four, and lectured in Armenian studies.
He was eventually exposed when an English professor on the adjudicating panel for the prestigious Fulbright and Rhodes scholarships noticed similarities between the applicant’s submission and the work of a colleague, and subsequently instigated an investigation into Wheeler’s academic record.
