That said, US citizens face arrest and serious charges if they have sexual relations with minors.  These laws may be ignored in the country but not when the perpetrators are US citizens.

Costa Rica routinely allows what we would consider sexual child abuse withot a care but US citizens face serious penalties for partaking.  This is one case when a US national had better not assume he can act under local norms when traveling.  

Child prostitution, while not prevalent, exists in Costa Rica.  I assume that this would not be possible without customers.  However, US citizens are occasionally prosecuted for what is accepted as acceptable behavior by Costa Ricans.

Typically, consular officers will scrutinize
these visa applications closely not only
to satisfy the requirement that the proffered
relationship is sincere and genuine, but also,
if warranted, to ensure that visa issuance is
in the best interest of the minor.

Regards.

I think Aaron was simply saying that a man having a 16 year old wife could cause some legal problems here in the US.   The general assumption is that when someone goes to Colombia or wherever, is that they will marry that person and bring them back to the US.  To be honest I'm not sure of how that would exactly work, but I would be leery of it.  Here is why: US- It is considered rape for a person of age to have sex with a person under the age.  Granted the parents will have given permission for their child to marry the man, but it's not clear to me what the result would be when they return to the US.  I guess it would be ok, but I'm not an attorney.  

Finally, I think Aarons major point was to say that a firm advertising a 16 year old should be looked upon with suspicion as it could be easily confused with one of those sites that sets up men to have sex with young girls. Yes those types of places do exist. The thing is, having a (some) 16 year old women could attract a “different” type of man to the agency.  That would not be good for the men that are seeking relationships and marriage.  We all know about the men that go down to Colombia and seek to have “fun” rather than try and find a suitable partner for marriage.  

Can you imagine what would happen if a man posted his photos of  his16 year old girlfriend in his hotel room on his bed in underwear or even a bathing suit?  That person might be approaching the child porn borderline.  Again perhaps this sounds extreme, but you never know and I know I don’t know the law so I wouldn’t do it.  Again Aarons point is just to make people aware of the potential problems and hazards that could exist with a agency that post 16 year old girls.

While the age of consent might be different in Colombia, make no mistake that people in general do not think it’s a good idea that a older man have a teenager for a novia or otherwise.   Sure you might see it, but that doesn't make it right or acceptable.  My ex novia pointed out a couple like that to me and then we discussed what she thought of it and what she thought was public opinion in Colombia (granted this is her opinion of the general opinion). She said that while it’s typical for a man to be slightly older than a woman, it’s not looked upon happily when a man is considerably older than a woman (i.e., a 45 year old man with a teenage). In many ways, Colombia is not much different than the US.  There is a difference between couple where a man who is 52 and a woman who is 30 and a couple where the man is 38 and the woman is 16.  The later is not looked up favorably in either the US or Colombia or anywhere in my opinion.  

I’m sure someone will think this is a PhD mafia or some sort, but I wanted to take a moment to point out a few things.  I know we have some attorneys on the board, it would be great if they shared their feelings and legal opinion.

Happy New Year everyone

1.  Getting a PhD in almost any field requires that you have some substantial gray matter (usually top 10% just to be considered).  Additionally, significant work experience is now also being required by many schools and fields.

2.  Getting a PhD is far from just taking notes and studying.  That would be your typical grad school or undergrad formula.  The entire idea behind obtaining a PhD is to demonstrate ones ability to critically think about old ideas, to think of new ideas, to formulate theory, to test that theory and finally to explain the results or lack there of.  This usually requires aside from a deep understanding of ones field,  a statistical knowledge way beyond what most of us know and use on a day to day basis. Granted I'm speaking from the perspective of having obtained a PhD in Accounting.

3.  Most PhD. are fully funded. That is, as a student I was on a full ride and I got a generous salary on top.  This obviously makes getting into a program very difficult and competitive. At my old school (Michigan State U) about 1-50 applications got accepted to the Accounting PhD program.  Now maybe that is not impressive, but when you consider that the pool generally consist of people with 700 GMAT scores, and 4.0's GPA and a list of other achievements, its pretty dog-on impressive that one gets accepted to an Accounting doctoral program. In fact only about 60-70 people a year in the entire US earn a PhD. in Accounting. This reflects the small number of students accpeted into the one of 77 programs in the US.

4.  I will agree that you need tons of perseverance and next to intellect that is number 2 in the "must haves" to obtain a PhD.  In fact, that is where the big differences come in.  There are a lot of smart people in the world, and usually they get by pretty easily, however, to get a PhD, you must be smart and also have a lot of perseverance. This combination is not easily found.   In fact after getting accepted to a program, perseverance is what gets you through-given you have the gray matter to do the work.

So again, I'm not picking a fight.  I'm just saying I understand your comments, but Aaron’s comments have nothing to do with his PhD.  Other than my specialty, I'm a normal person with normal thought processes.  PhD's are smart enough to know they are not experts outside their fields. So anything a person says here on this board (PhD or not) should be taken as a mans opinion and nothing more.  

Finally, there some schools (distance learning based) that have easier ways to get a PhD.  However, I think Aaron went to Penn State which is a Big Ten School like Michigan State, Michigan etc.  Getting a PhD from a school like this is considered to World Class in the world of academia.  You might not like him or me for that matter, but one thing is you have to respect him for his craft.  Which is not related to this board so again, anything a person says should not be tied to their profession? It’s two different things.

As for the psychology guy that cuts your grass. Their field is very competitive (too many PhD's) so that might explain it.  Also he may not have actually finished his Doctorate.  He may also have foreced out of academia due to his inability to publish or perhaps worse.  The fact is I don't know why he cuts grass for a living.  The best way is to ask him. The real fact is it really doesn't matter to the agrugment.  There are no absolutes in the world.

Chat later