Latest diploma mill propaganda story...

Apparently this "parable" is making the circles within the defenders of "less-than-wonderful" institutions. I've seen it posted a few times on discussion boards from various sources. I place it here so degreeinfo folk can examine, de-bunk, and shed light on the true meaning of the story. As you can no doubt surmise, our diploma mill "friends" use stories like this to essentially say to each other, "see? we are TOO legitimate! even though we look like crap on the outside"....

The sheer energy these people spend on conjuring up excuses for their purchased degrees and outright fabrications is amazing to me - if they spent 1/10th of that energy on earning a real degree, they'd all be further ahead - maybe not PhDs from Princeton like our friend George Gollin, but certainly ahead of the cesspit they currently dwell within.

Anyway, the "diploma mill parable de jeure" is called...

Never Let Success Go To Your Head - a true story!

A lady in a faded dress and her husband, dressed in a threadbare suit, walked in without an appointment into the office of the president of the most prestigious educational institution in America.

The secretary frowned at them and said, "He will be busy all day."

"We will wait," said the couple quietly.

The secretary ignored them for hours hoping they would go away, but they did not. Finally, the secretary decided to disturb the president, hoping they will go away quickly once they meet him.

The president took one look at the faded dress and worn suit and glared sternly at them. The lady said, "Our son studied here and he was very happy. A year ago, he was killed in an accident. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial for him on this campus."

The president was not touched. He was shocked. "Madam, we cannot put up a statue for every student of ours who died. This place would look like a cemetery."

"Oh, no," the lady cried out, "we don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would give a building to you."

"A building?" exclaimed the president, looking at their worn out clothes. "Do you have any idea how much a building costs? Our buildings cost close to ten million dollars!"

The lady was silent. The president was pleased and thought this would get rid of them.

The lady looked at her husband. "If that is what it costs to start a university, why don't we build our own?" Her husband nodded.

Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford walked away. They then travelled to Palo Alto, California, where they established a university as a memorial to their son, bearing the name-----Stanford University.

(Carl's note - I guess having a mailboxes etc. drop for the university transcript service/archives, complete with suite number, is analogous to founding Stanford University?)

 

You can find a slightly more accurate version here: http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/history/begin.html

 

http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/history/begin.html#Birth

 

A condensed version;

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/stanford.htm

 

They do make for interesting reading.

John