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Adam B. Wheeler is no little white liar. Authorities have accused the ex-Harvard student of falsifying records and recommendations to get into that august institution, where the odds an applicant will be admitted are 1 in 14.23. He is also alleged to have forged and plagiarized his way to tens of thousands of dollars in monetary scholarships, and was even on track for a prestigious Rhodes or Fulbright award.

And no wonder. Wheeler had transcripts littered with A’s, not only from his two years at Harvard, but also from MIT where he claimed to have spent his freshman year before applying for a transfer, and from the prestigious prep school Phillips Academy Andover before that. Not only did he not attend Andover or MIT, his actual grades at Harvard included some A’s, but also B’s and one unsightly D. And that perfect 1600 on the SAT? Never happened. Ditto for the books he claimed to have co-authored.

If the allegations are true, it will be fascinating to learn how Wheeler was able to forge so many official documents, not to mention tell so many whoppers with a straight face. But while he might be a better and more brazen liar than most, he’s got plenty of company. The odds an adult admits to telling a lie in the past day are 1 in 2.49. And 1 in 37.04 of us will own up to four—just in one 24-hour period.

While Wheeler is charged with passing off the work of prominent professors as his own (and that of one surely irate Cornell grad student), cribbing from the Web has become a common high school pastime. The odds a high school student will plagiarize an Internet document for a classroom assignment at least once in a year are 1 in 2.78.

Old-fashioned homework copying certainly hasn’t gone out of style. The odds an honor student will do that at least once in a year are 1 in 1.22 (82%). And as for cheating on a test—among those honor students it’s 1 in 1.64 (61%).

Perhaps students are taking their cues from the grown-ups around them. Jazzing up credentials remains a problem even after the diplomas are awarded. Many job-seekers falsify their backgrounds—so many that a survey of professionals back in 2001 found that 14% admitted they had lied on their resumes, and a 2008 survey of employers by CareerBuilder.com found that half had discovered false claims made by job seekers on their resumes, including phony academic degrees. A few of the more outrageous claims: attendance at a nonexistent school, military experience prior to one’s birth, and being a member of the Kennedy dynasty.

What would John F. Kennedy, Harvard class of 1940, have had to say about this?