Kemi Badenoch faces scrutiny as Stanford University officer disputes claim of pre-med school offer
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the United Kingdom’s Conservative Party, is facing fresh questions over her past after a former Stanford University admissions officer disputed her claim that she once received an offer to study pre-med in the United States.
Badenoch has repeatedly cited the supposed offer in interviews, portraying it as an example of her parents’ financial struggles to secure her the best education despite her strong academic record.
In a 2017 interview, Badenoch said her dreams of being a doctor like her parents were cut short at 16 because she went to a “very bad school” in the UK.
Badenoch attributed part of her growing up to the US because “my mother worked internationally, so when she travelled, so did the kids”.
“I had actually got admission into medical school in the US – I got into Stanford pre-med – and I got into medical school in Nigeria, but I came here (the UK) because being a citizen, it was just a lot cheaper,” she said in the Huffington Post interview.
The claim was repeated in another interview feature published by the Times last year.
“At 16, her US SAT scores won her a partial pre-med scholarship to Stanford, but her family still couldn’t afford the place,” the report said.
The narrative was also featured in other UK dailies.
However, Stanford does not have a pre-med major, according to its website.
“For any of the health professions, you may major in any discipline,” the notice adds.
FORMER ADMISSIONS OFFICER DISPUTES CLAIM
Jon Reider, the Stanford admissions officer at the time of Badenoch’s application who was responsible for international students and the allocation of bursaries, challenged the politician’s claim.
Reider said he would have been responsible for offering Badenoch a place and had not done so.
“Although 30 years have passed, I would definitely remember if we had admitted a Nigerian student with any financial aid. The answer is that we did not do so,” he said, according to The Guardian UK.
“I assure you that we would not have admitted a student based on test scores alone, nor would we have mailed an invitation to apply to any overseas students based on test scores.
“O-levels would not have been sufficient, and we would have been very nervous admitting a 16-year-old. She would have had to have an extraordinary record.”
Reider noted that it was implausible for a student to be offered a partial scholarship that they could not afford to take up.
“If an applicant needed, say, $30,000 a year to attend Stanford, we would offer them the full amount. There was no point in offering them less because they would not have been able to attend. If we admitted them, we wanted them to enrol,” he said.
He added that none of his decisions as the admission officer was overruled by any of the deans whom he worked for.
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