A ‘student’ has claimed they’ve been living a lie for the last three years and people think their story sounds like it could be the plot of a gripping TV show.
The wild confession was made on the University of Birmingham student community Facebook page, Brumfess where an anonymous social media user explained they’d been pretending to attend the university.
The person – whose identity, gender and age remain unknown – claimed they had gone to extreme lengths to maintain the lie, including moving into student accommodation, attending lectures and befriending others on campus, reports BirminghamLive.
As well as fooling their parents with the lie, students attending the uni had also fallen for it, so they had to pretend they were sitting exams in different rooms.
According to the Facebook post, the alleged student explained they had “very strict” parents and had been afraid to tell them they had “spectacularly” failed their A-Levels.
So instead, they decided to create a fake results letter and pretend they had been accepted to their first choice uni to avoid being “disowned”.
They wrote: “My parents are very strict and wouldn’t accept me not going to university. I had UoB as my first choice university but failed spectacularly in my A-levels and couldn’t even get into my insurance choice.
“What I regret doing was telling the other students I lived with the lie as well, I just wanted to fit in but they all believed it.”
They continued: “I ended up going to Freshers’ week and managing to go along to societies as a non-member.
“What made things worse was I had a friend from home who also was doing my course and I took things too far and told her I couldn’t get into my timetable could she send me a copy of hers.
“I was shocked how easy it was to get into the lecture rooms and the first two weeks I went to lectures and made many friends who all believed me.
“I stopped after a few weeks but the people I met were great and I didn’t want to admit I had lied. I would just join in on the complaining about deadlines, I got around not being in their exam rooms by saying I had anxiety and had to be in a separate room.”
The person went on to say that their parents were financially supporting them the entire time but they also worked in a restaurant to save money.
In the second year the lie got even deeper when they agreed to move into a shared student house with people studying the course they were pretending to be on.
Their biggest worry wasn’t their pals finding out the truth though, it was all about the parents.
“My biggest concern was my parents wanting to go to graduation but now it’s cancelled it couldn’t be more perfect for me,” they wrote.
While that particular issue may have been resolved, the person is now unsure what life after fake uni will be like for them – and they’re even considered moving countries to escape the lie.
“None of my friends from home or anyone knows that I have faked everything and I am so deep into the lie I’ve considered moving countries to escape.
“My parents aren’t going to be happy with me not having a grad job but I’ve blamed it on Corona.”
They added that they were unsure whether to add their pretend degree to their CV and asked the people of Facebook for some advice.
“Do I just put my fake degree on my CV and go with it, I know my subject very well from reading the textbooks and having to maintain conversation with my course mates.
“Surely no company is going to check my degree so thoroughly they find me out as a fake?
“It feels good to admit this finally but I am serious if anyone knows what sort of checks a company can do please help.
More than 1,000 people have liked the post with hundreds sharing and commenting.
One person replied: “This would be such a good TV show.”
Another said: “I hope that this isn’t true, but also 100 per cent true in equal measures.”
A third suggested the person consider a career in the secret service.
Someone else added: “I really hope this person’s course wasn’t medicine or engineering.”
