Are online students really students? We like to think seeing is believing, but who meets a student who takes a completely online class? Apparently, seeing is also interpolating…. at Stanford, anyway. Is this a single case? How easy is it for someone to take an academic year’s worth of classes without anyone catching on to the scam?

An 18-year-old Fullerton woman spent the past eight months posing as a freshman biology major at Stanford, buying textbooks, sneaking into meals and even moving into a dorm with an unsuspecting roommate.

… Her story started unraveling this month, and now the university — and her stunned circle of friends and dormmates — are looking back on how a woman described as a sweet student could have pulled off such a ruse.

At my alma mater, you could audit a class. Talking to the right professor, you could get put on his or her role informally should there be room. Later, working in IT on an online class system, how students who didn’t exist in the student information system could take the online class was a frequently reoccuring question from faculty members.