A student in Pittsburgh is excited about getting into Harvard — so excited, in fact, that he doesn’t actually want to go. He’d rather someone go in his place, and he’ll pay big bucks for his replacement.
In what could have easily been the plot of a slapstick teen comedy, a Craigslist ad from a poster out of Pittsburgh took to the site to offer $40,000 a year to anyone who is willing to attend Harvard University for him. The only guidelines for the impostor are that it must be a male with either a 4.0 GPA in high school or a 3.5 or higher GPA from a university. Age, the poster said, does not matter.
“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,” the poster writes. “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,” he writes.
Though the post has since been flagged for removal by the site, another poster out of New York, has placed a counter offer.
“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,” the counter-post notes. “I get that a lot of this is sketchy but I promise you I’d give myself in before I gave you in if it came down to that.”
The New Yorker doesn’t even want the $40,000. “I’m not doing this for the money, the opportunity that you’re giving me is enough. You will always come first.”