A Craigslist Poster Offered ‘$40K a Year to Attend Harvard University as Me’

For those of you wishing you could just go back to college, there’s this: Among the ‘writing gigs’ being advertised in the Pittsburgh section of Craigslist was one written by a man claiming to have been admitted to Harvard. It reads:

You must have either a 4.0 GPA in high school, or a 3.5 or higher GPA from a university to get hired for this.

Your age does not matter, but you must be a male since I have a male name.

I am looking for someone to attend Harvard University pretending to be me for four years, starting August 2014. I will pay for your tuition, books, housing, transportation, and living expenses and pay $40,000 a year with a $10,000 bonus after graduation. All you have to do is attend all classes, pass all tests, and finish all assigned work, while pretending you are me.

You do not need to worry about being accepted, I have already taken care of that.

If interested please email me a little info about yourself, and we can meet in person to discuss further.

Though Craigslist has already flagged it for removal, the text of the posting has gone semi-viral because … what?! If this is a scam, it’s a creative one. If it’s for real, it creates a lot of questions. Like, what does this poster plan to do for four years while Harvard thinks he’s attending? Or, “What qualified individual in their right mind would spend four years on this?” And yet, consider a follow-up post, also in the Pittsburgh “writing gigs” section of Craigslist:

I can guarantee you that I would get all A’s if you chose me and that I would put my heart and soul into whatever you needed from me … I don’t even need 40 k every year, paying for tuition and living expenses is enough, though maybe just a little every semester to cover my student loans every month (which is probably like 100 a month or something). I’m not doing this for the money, the opportunity that you’re giving me is enough. You will always come first.

No offense to the original poster, but this guy seems way more deserving of that Harvard acceptance letter, what with his ardor for learning for learning’s sake, etc. That said, we’re sure four years at Harvard would be a blast, but what does one do afterward with a borrowed education? Would your resume say, “Harvard University, B.A. on behalf of insane, entitled person. Degree expected 2018”? Sadly, the original poster also required a non-disclosure agreement, so it would not.