Hilarious (but scary) story on University of Ravenhurst

Excellent story by Zev Singer in a major Canadian paper a couple of days ago, on his interactions with the fake University of Ravenhurst.

http://www.canada.com/search/site/story.asp?id=413D7038-5955-4D4C-AE8F-44E055F8CCE2

 

What a truly great and wonderful article. Zev Singer deserves a Pulitzer!

Thanks, John.

 

Not many articles can be both apalling and entertaining. Thank you for amusing and scaring me.

Tony

 

Truly scary, especially when the EQAC, an accrediting agency which accredits Bircham International University also accredits Ravenhurst University and Thornewood University

Cheers,

George

 

Lazlo Toth lives.

 

This is a great story and I think it also demonstrates why those who get diploma mill degrees and use them professionally to gain employment should be exposed. They must certainly know what they are getting into.

John

 

The mills' era is over (?)

Actually, after reading the story I felt somewhat relieved. If they have SO MUCH time to answer a single student's inquiries before enrolling in such LENGTH through SO MANY e-mails, then I assume that they don't enroll many students at all right now and are really desperate. I mean, quite practically, if they were enrolling large amounts of students, they would not have time to answer in such length and detail.

With so many RA DL programmes now, are all those mills and less-than-wonderful schools running out of students these days? Is their era over?

adelheid

 

Re: The mills' era is over (?)

I wish I could agree with you.

However,

Email is nonlinear. How much time do you think it took her to write her responses?

The journalist is most probably not her only correspondent.

There are likely more than just her acting as registrar?

Assuming it took an hour or two, look at the profit after overhead.

Maybe I am wrong, but I have a hard time believing that dishonest, cheap, unethical, etc. people are becoming an endangered species.

I wish I was wrong.

Tony

 

Dear myoptimism:

You mean it's more than a family business? I thought that it was run out of a living room, or better: study room, or drawing room. Do you think that there are more prople involved and it could be a global conspiration to rule the world?

Going all the way up to the very top, maybe all mills are owned by ONE person who wants to dominate the world? What do you think?

adelheid

 

LOL

Just pointing out a few thoughts about your statement, I do hope you were kidding.

Take care,

Tony

 

There is reliable evidence that Ravenhurst (et al) has sold more than 70,000 fake degrees in the US and Canada alone.

Even at 'only' $1,500 each, that makes them more than a $100 million business.

 

It would be reasonable to deduce that the person responding in those e-mails has plenty of time to do so because this is her job. As a salesperson/order-taker/whatever, she is likely paid on commission--perhaps half of what is taken from the customer. A few e-mails for a more inquisitive customer doesn't seem so much to earn about $500. Do that once a day and you're making $100k per annum. And you gotta believe most customers require considerably less maintenance.

I'm a firm believer in the "co-conspirator" portion of John's degree mill customer paradigm. I'm sure there are people who are fooled into thinking they're particpating in a legitimate process. But how many really believe this is a real university awarding useful and recognized degrees via a legitimate process? The subject of a very interesting doctoral dissertation, if one could get access to the population.