Genius Girl' Fakes Admission Into Harvard

A high school senior is at the center of an international controversy after lying about being admitted to a dual Harvard-Stanford undergraduate program, and pretending to have received a five-figure scholarship to both schools.Jung Yoon Kim, who goes by Sara, is graduating this year fromThomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, one of the nation’s top high schools. The 17-year-old claimed that the two universities wanted her to enroll so badly that they offered her a special program where she could enroll at Harvard for two years and Stanford for two, according to the Washington Post. She added that Mark Zuckerberg called her to urge her to enroll at Harvard, his alma mater.
Sara, who is Korean, made news at home and in Korea, where news outlets celebrated her, dubbing her “Genius Girl,” the Washington Postreported. But soon, fellow students started questioning her story, and officials at Harvard and Stanford both refuted her claims. “While we do not comment publicly on the admission status of individual applicants to Harvard College, we have been made aware of three admissions letters and multiple email communications that were allegedly sent to Ms. Jung Yoon (Sara) Kim confirming her acceptance to Harvard University,” Harvard officials told Yahoo Parenting in a statement. “None of these communications were sent by Harvard, and we can confirm that they are all forgeries. There is no program in existence through which a student is admitted to spend two years at Harvard College and two years at Stanford University.”
Stanford University provided Yahoo Parenting with a similar statement. “Stanford does not have any program offering undergraduate admission to both Stanford and another university. A letter of admission that was provided to news media in this case was not authentic and was not issued by Stanford University.”