THE CONWOMAN of Cambridge

In the mid-2010s, Caroline Calloway ruled Instagram due to her pithy posts of life at Cambridge University. Then, it all came crashing down around her in a spectacular internet slapdown. Here, in an extract from her new memoir, Calloway tells her truth

- TENEAL ZUVELA

The worst scams I ever perpetrated were the ones for which I was never caught. I lied on my application to England's University of Cambridge. Here's how. I began by photoshopping my transcript results from Phillips Exeter Academy. Was this difficult with their complex visual watermark? Yes. But I'm an art historian and artist.

The reason Cambridge didn't catch me was that every time you apply to the school, you apply to one of the individual colleges and not to the university itself. These colleges are totally decentralised and loathe sharing anything amongst each other - including files on applicants.

I only had to change one grade on my American report card from Exeter but it was a bad one. My senior spring I'd gotten a D+ in Ancient Greek as that class was at the same time my boyfriend had a free period, during which he liked to fuck me in his top bunk bed.

I changed that D+ to an A-. Then I lied to Cambridge like this: on my two AP English Lit exams, I'd gotten one 5 and one 4. Ditto AP Latin exams. I told Cambridge I got four 5s instead. My lies looked so rhythmic next to all my other 5s in AP Art History and Italian, and so believable next to my perfect score on the reading section of the SATS. I'd all but failed the math portion because I can't count, but I'd failed the writing segment, too, because I couldn't finish it in time.

My Cambridge interview was scheduled for my 21st birthday. I spent it with my mom and my art history textbooks in a pub, cramming between my meetings, scraped-out with stress by the time we nervously clinked pint glasses and toasted about good luck. Twenty-one is an age that means nothing in England.