By all accounts Marilee Jones did an excellent job as dean of admissions at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But she was forced to resign last month after it emerged that she had falsely claimed to hold three degrees when she first came to work at MIT 28 years earlier. In fact, she held only an undergraduate degree from an obscure Catholic college.

I feel her pain, for school never agreed with me. I repeatedly found myself in conflict with teachers and professors. I left high school after my sophomore year; and although...