On paper, he was the perfect transfer. Here’s what finally tipped the school off to this student’s web of lies.

Adam Wheeler bluffed his way into Harvard University with forged transcripts and letters of recommendation from the elite Phillips Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also claimed that he got perfect SAT scores. The scam worked – he got $45,000 in scholarships, grants and other financial aid. But then he got even greedier.

After two years attending Harvard, Wheeler applied for the prestigious Rhodes and Fullbright scholarships by using more falsified grades and claims of academic prowess. This raised the suspicions of school officials, who soon unraveled his deception.

The truth: Wheeler graduated from Caesar Rodney High School, a public school, and attended Bowdoin College – where he was suspended for academic dishonesty (needless to say, the perfect transcript grades were a ruse, too). Wheeler’s Rhodes and Fullbright scholarship applications plagiarized the work of Stephen Greenblatt, a noted professor at the school.

He’d also won two writing prizes that had been almost entirely ripped off from a Cornell grad student’s dissertation.

Harvard dismissed Wheeler, but that didn’t stop him. He applied to an internship at the college’s McLean Hospital, and submitted transfer applications to Yale and Brown, claiming he was already interning at McLean!

The serial-scammer has been charged with four counts of larceny, eight counts of identity fraud, seven counts of falsifying an endorsement, and pretending to hold a degree. His bail has been set at $5,000. If posted, he must stay in Delaware and surrender his passport.

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Tags: academic forgery, Adam Wheeler, essay plagiarism, Harvard University