San Jose, Calif. – What would you do to attend Stanford University? An 18-year-old Fullerton woman spent the past eight months posing as a freshman biology major, buying textbooks, sneaking into meals, even moving into a dorm with an unsuspecting roommate.
Because she never had a Stanford ID or a school-issued dorm key, she got in and out of her dorm by climbing through a first-floor window.
Her story started unraveling this month, and now the university – and her stunned circle of friends and dorm mates – is looking back on how she could have pulled off such a ruse.
University officials ordered the woman off campus Monday but are saying little about their investigation of Azia Kim. They launched the probe Friday.
“The objective here is to determine the sequence of events,” university spokeswoman Kate Chesley said, “figure out where there may be some problems in our system.”
Concerns about security
Kim’s story has set off a storm of reaction on campus, with some students disturbed by an apparent security lapse and others wondering whether high pressure for academic achievement was a factor in why Kim sneaked into the elite university.
Kim was not available for comment. Since she was evicted from Stanford and sent to her uncle’s home in San Jose, she has been “hysterical” and “distraught,” according to students who know her and asked not to be identified.
Kim’s MySpace page online is filled with happy and zany pictures of her with friends, as well as dozens of chatty messages. The latest message, written on Tuesday by a family member, says: “Good Luck on FINALS!!!”
On campus, some students expressed envy that Kim could enjoy Stanford’s rich social and intellectual environment without such nuisances as pop quizzes, labs and 8 a.m. classes – or a $43,000 annual bill for tuition, room and board.
“Brand-name” schools
Other members of the Stanford community blamed a society where status is determined by the names on a college degree.
“As a society, we put such a premium on the brand names of schools,” said Denise Pope of Stanford’s department of education, who founded the Palo Alto-based Stressed Out Students Project.
Kim grew up in Fullerton, 25 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Her public high school, Troy High, has become one of the nation’s best-known high schools for its programs in science, math and technology. Kim’s name was nowhere to be found on the 11 pages of honors awarded to others in her 2006 graduating class.
