Manti Te'o's "Girlfriend," and 6 Other People Who Never Really Graduated From Stanford

Culture

Manti Teo'o has been in the news recently for being fooled by a girl pretending to be a Stanford alum. Much has been made of the fact that journalists should have discovered months ago that she never actually graduated from the university.

But, we will say that his girlfriend follows in a long line of Stanford students who never actually graduated — check out our list here:

1) John F. Kennedy:

JFK came to Stanford in the fall of 1940. He attended business school classes and slept at night on a plywood board to try to recover from ongoing back ailments. Kennedy dropped out after a term to travel in South America.

Honorable mention: Mitt Romney attended for a year before going on Mormon mission and transferring to BYU. 

2) Tiger Woods:

Woods enrolled at Stanford in 1994. He majored in economics and was nicknamed "Urkel" by teammates. Tiger turned pro after his sophomore year. And within a year after leaving, completed the fastest ever climb to be #1 ranked golfer in the world.

Honorable mention: John McEnroe. Stayed at Stanford for one year, winning an NCAA title.

3) John Steinbeck:

Steinbeck enrolled at Stanford in 1919. Spent six years at the school, but only finished enough classes for junior standing. He would later say that he was embarrassed to ever return to the school because he was such a lousy student. Steinbeck left school to move to New York City to try to get his writing published.

4) Azia Kim:

Kim arrived on campus in September 2006, claiming to be a Stanford sophomore – though she was never actually admitted. She convinced two students to let her stay in their bedroom. Bought textbooks, joined study groups for classes she didn't take, and enrolled in ROTC and was issued hundreds of dollars of military equipment.

5) Steve Ballmer:

 

Ballmer dropped out of Stanford's business school after one year in 1980 to join Microsoft. 

6) Elle Woods:

Legally Blonde was originally a book based on the real life experience of a bubbly blonde at Stanford Law School. 

When the book was turned into a movie, however, Stanford refused to allow the movie to shot at her school, causing the filmmakers to go to Harvard instead. 

(1) Elle, the fictional movie character, was supposed to graduate from Stanford but ultimately didn't;

This article originally appeared on Noodle.