A Reddit moderator of the sub-reddit Btechtards (A community for BTech & Engineering students & aspirants) played a crucial role in uncovering the US university admission fraud committed by an Indian student named Aryan Anand (19), who was recently convicted for it.
On condition of anonymity, the moderator, a 19-year-old student himself, detailed how he verified and reporteds Anand's confessional post on Reddit, where he wrote about the fraudulent methods he used to secure an admission anonymously.
In February 2024, Anand's anonymous post on Reddit detailed his deceit, leading to his eventual exposure. Anand used fake documents, including his academic records and his father's death certificate, to obtain a full scholarship to Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.
"I came across Aryan's post on my first day while moderating Btechtards. Initially, I was unsure if the post was real, but the specific details made me investigate further," the moderator explained to The Free Press Journal (FPJ).
Investigation
To verify the authenticity of Anand's post, the moderator cross-referenced his Reddit activity and identified his connection to Lehigh University. "I noticed that he was following Lehigh University and had posted a picture of an academic building there, which led me to believe he was a student at Lehigh," the moderator told the FPJ.
Screenshots of Anand's post were then sent to Lehigh University's admissions office, which led to a response from the Lehigh police department.
"So that's how I figured out that, this guy is from Lehigh and the way that I had mentioned everything in detail. It was very oddly specified and detailed. So the first thing I did was took the screenshots of the post he had made," the moderator further explained.
He said, "I took the screenshots and wrote a mail to admissions department of Lehigh University. And, I didn't get a response from Lehigh directly but I got a mail from detective Lieutenant of the high police department directly after one month."
Anand's confession
In his post, Anand described his meticulous planning. "I soon realised I wouldn't be able to get even a 50 percentile in JEE, so I started looking for colleges abroad. I edited my academic records perfectly, created a fake email ID for my school, and even bought a similar domain to make it look official," he wrote.
Anand used ChatGPT to craft compelling application essays and faked his father's death certificate to secure additional financial aid. "I got my result for 9-11 class edited them like in a very perfect way anyone would not recognise as if it's edited... made a fake email id of my school... bought a similar website domain of my school and got the email like if it's of principal then principal@schoolname.com so it looked exactly official."
After receiving an acceptance from a top 25 US college with almost full financial aid, Anand faced a new challenge—the remaining costs. To avoid paying the remaining costs, he faked his father's death certificate, claiming, "I created a completely fake death certificate of my father... sent that to Lehigh college, saying my dad got cancer and is dead... instantly increased my aid package to over full cost of attendance."
When talking about Anand's Reddit profile, the moderator said, "So his profile was initially showing him like Aryan joined in most of these communities like Pennsylvania, Lehigh and a few of these like foreign university admission communities, which helps students figure out what procedures you need to follow to get admissions and scholarship in this university. And most of the post and comments, they were random comments which were mostly engaging in a B techtards post. While for posting, he had barely posted two posts. Only one of them was random about some technical problem. And second one was in which he was talking about a picture of an academic block in Lehigh University."
He continued, "It was like clearly that he deleted most of them before making the confession post. But the problem is that he didn't realise the part where he was supposed to unfollow those subreddits. Otherwise, it would be clearly showing on the top office profile that, he's active in these subreddits."
When asked about why he believed it was not a fake or made-up post, the moderator said, "So sometimes it's common to come across fake posts like this. But the details, they were so specific. And we have to report this. This was not something I was willing to let go with that easily because in the Indian-rated community most of the users are students."
Consequences
Anand was then arrested two months later, and on June 12, 2024, he pleaded guilty to forgery. His admission to Lehigh University was subsequently canceled. Anand's fraudulent conduct might have resulted in a 10- to 20-year prison sentence in US; however, a plea deal with the university allowed him to avoid the sentence.
Anand was deported back to India. The investigation that resulted in Anand's arrest by Lehigh University Police Department were commended by Lehigh University.
"Lehigh University appreciates the report to its ethics hotline and the diligent investigation by the Lehigh University Police Department that led to Aryan Anand’s arrest, as well as the Northampton County District Attorney’s Office’s prosecution of Anand for fraud," spokeswoman Amy White said.
Community reaction
The Reddit community had varied reactions, with some viewing Anand as smart but undeserving, while others saw him as a symptom of a larger problem in the Indian education system. The moderator emphasised the importance of honesty and the impact of fraud on deserving students. "The details in Anand's post were so specific, it was obvious it needed to be reported. Many students miss out on opportunities because of such deceit," the moderator stated.
Reflecting on the broader implications, he added, "I've seen multiple students who maybe miss their good college by some small percentile or some small mark gap. But so they do know the value, most of the students, were infuriated, while some of them were impressed too after reading Aryan's fraud details. So at some point, even I felt a bit upset too because I am a JEE aspirant as well and I did put a lot of time into preparing for my exam. So this felt like an insult to all the students who are trying to get into international universities."
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