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The Class Of 2018 Gets Its Own Impostor

What kind of tomfoolery are those silly frosh up to now? One of Bwog’s sly sleuths details a person’s attempts at establishing himself as a rising Freshman on Facebook…or should we say Fakebook?

Remember the Columbia impostors from the last few years? Remember all the stupid things pre-frosh posted in the Class of 2018 group? Bwog recently found out that these two spheres have collided—throughout the 2013-2014 school year and for a couple months over the summer, a young man named Andy Rodriguez pretended to be matriculating to Columbia, interacting with current freshmen through social media.

Although there is one official Facebook group for the Class of 2018 that is managed by the Admissions Office, freshmen made multiple other groups for special interests, such as “Columbia Class of 2018 Feminists,” “Columbia Class of 2018 Musicians,” and “Columbia (CC, SEAS)/Barnard Class of 2018.” These groups are student-run, so technically anyone can join as long as a moderator approves them—unlike with the official group, there is no way to verify that people have actually been accepted to the University.

Andy Rodriguez, at the time a high school senior from Miami, first joined a student-run Facebook group for QuestBridge Scholars (he was not part of the program), and then later joined the joint Columbia-Barnard group, claiming he had been matched with Columbia through QuestBridge. He was never a member of the official Class of 2018 group. He was well known in both unofficial groups, posting often, and he formed friendships with many current Columbia students.

In April, he somehow attended Days on Campus—one student said he signed up through walk-in registration, claiming that he had forgotten to register online. He spent the revisit weekend with friends he had made through the Facebook group, attending official events and posing for photos on Low Steps. In addition, he attended a party early that summer at a student’s home in New Jersey at which, according to the student, he threw up all over the house.

Perhaps his most egregious act, Rodriguez used the Facebook group to raise money for a new laptop. He claimed that his laptop was broken by two people in Central Park as part of a gay hate crime, and he started a GoFundMe page in order to buy a replacement. Multiple Columbia students donated and shared the page with friends and family members. The GoFundMe page has since been deleted, so Bwog is unclear on how much money he raised, but he was ultimately able to buy himself a new computer.

At some point over the summer, soon after he bought the new laptop, he deleted every reference to Columbia from his social media accounts, defriended all students on Facebook, and left the Columbia and QuestBridge Facebook groups that he had joined. His Columbia friends haven’t heard from him since, and now know that he was never accepted to QuestBridge or Columbia. Bwog is unsure if the University was ever notified or if they took any action.

Photo courtesy of an anonymous tipster