AFF Doublethink Online » The Self-Made Man In a 2001 New Yorker profile, David Samuels lays out the story of 18-year-old Alexi Santana, a “self-educated” cowboy who lived outdoors in the Mojave Desert, “read Plato under the stars,” ran a sub-four minute mile, and was among the applicants to Princeton’s class of 1992. Santana played up every “hook” that a perfect college application could possibly offer — an ambiguous minority background, high SAT scores, athletic prowess, immense erudition, and an iconoclastic life story that would bring color to whatever class he might join. Evidently not considering that such a perfect application might be too good to be true, Princeton admitted him. He excelled at school, but in his second year, a spectator at a track meet recognized Santana from a former life. He was actually James Hogue, a 31-year-old drifter, con-man and habitual thief who had served time in prison prior to coming to Princeton. Hogue was expelled from the university and, after another stint in prison, plunged back into obscurity.