Julia Zauzmer’s new book, “Conning Harvard,” tells the saga of the now-infamous Adam Wheeler, who plagiarized his way into some of the most elite schools in the United States, including Bowdoin.
Zauzmer, a Harvard senior and staff writer for The Harvard Crimson, has been following the story since it surfaced during her freshman year.
After filing a Freedom of Information Act request, sifting through hundreds of documents, conducting countless interviews and even spending a night at Bowdoin, Zauzmer sheds new light on how Wheeler was able to game the system. Below, Zauzmer responds to a few questions about herself, the book, and Adam Wheeler.
Q: What triggered your interest in Wheeler’s story?
A: Well, at the very beginning, my co-writer and I got very, very lucky. We were the two freshmen who happened to be sitting in front of the managing editor’s desk on the day she got an email saying this Adam Wheeler case broke. She said to us, “There is some guy who has plagiarized some documents from Harvard or MIT if you want to look into it.” And from that minute we spent the next five days covering the case. After that, we covered it all the way until he pleaded guilty, which was the winter break of our sophomore year.
Q: Is the book primarily interviews, or is it more of a timeline?
A: It’s a narrative. It starts with Wheeler in high school when he started plagiarizing things, which is new in the book—no one has ever reported that before. And it goes up to the time that he pleads guilty.
Q: It sounds like you discuss his personal life, not just his plagiarism.
A: A little bit, yes. If you read chapter five, it’s definitely talking a little about his girlfriends, his roommates. But I knew a lot more information about that than I thought was appropriate to include in the book.
Q: Were you able to interview Wheeler himself?
A: I would feel so much better about this whole thing if he wanted to be a part of it because I think telling his side of the story would be so enriching. I’ve reached out to him by phone and in person and by letters. We’ve spoken briefly a couple of times and he’s made it very clear he does not want to be interviewed on the record.
Q: In the blurb it says that you “dug through records to expose even more instances of deception.” Can you give an example?
A: One thing I happened to realize when I was looking at his Bowdoin application was that, in fact, the essays he used to get into Bowdoin had been plagiarized. That is sort of new news. It’s hard to get used to looking for plagiarism. There was a freshman form at Bowdoin he filled out to tell his RA, or maybe his advisor, about his study habits and things like that. It was a really basic form. He had a two-sentence answer that was kind of interesting and I was going to quote it in the book. And in one of the last drafts of the book I look at that part of the chapter and “Hey, I never checked to make sure that he really wrote those two sentences.” I just put them into Google and sure enough, it popped right up. He plagiarized just a two sentence response on the form.
Q: Did Bowdoin and Harvard try to keep tabs on him after he was caught? How did he slip so thorougly under the radar?
A: At Bowdoin, he was suspended for academic dishonesty. No one there had any clue that he had actually already applied for transfer to Harvard before he was even summoned to the Judicial Board. He was going to transfer no matter what. They did send him letters every semester saying, “Your semester is done, you can come back to Bowdoin now.” But finally, after about two years of not returning to Bowdoin, he said that he was going to do research and not complete his degree. There is actually a box on that form that he turned in that says, “Have you transferred somewhere else?” and he said no. At that point, he had been a Harvard student for a year. As for Harvard keeping tabs on him, they certainly did.
When he left Harvard, not only did they start poking around his Rhodes and Fulbright scholarship applications—which had gotten him caught at Harvard—they actually went back and opened up his admissions application. At that point they realized everything had been faked and they called the police. So from Harvard’s point of view this was a criminal investigation.
Q: Based on your experience at Bowdoin, what do you think about the Academic Honor Code and Judicial Board? How did that system play into his deception and plagiarism?
A: One thing that just struck me as a student about the Bowdoin judicial system was that it’s a student organization, which is totally foreign to me. I haven’t been to a school that works that way and it’s really amazing; as I walked around talking to Bowdoin students, I started saying, “Wow, is that uncomfortable? Is it something where if you go before the Judicial Board you might be judged by a fellow student and then come into class or into the dining hall the next day and be sitting next to them?” And everyone at Bowdoin has this really mature attitude about it and said, “No, that’s their job and if they are good at it, they’re not going to go gossip to their friends about it.”
I don’t think it made such a difference to Wheeler. He was going to do what he was going to do no matter what kind of justice system was facing him because we’ve seen him behave the exact same way in front of Bowdoin’s system, Harvard’s adult-run system, and the government.
Zauzmer’s book will be available from Lyons Press for purchase online at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble for $13.99.