CRASH COURSE: Birva Patel, a k a “Rhea Sen,” is arrested for alleged trespassing at Columbia. (Steven Lau/Columbia Daily Spectator)
She really loves Columbia University — a bit too much.
A woman passed herself off as a Columbia student for months — socializing with undergrads, eating in dining halls and going on orientation trips — while racking up three arrests for trespassing at the campus, court records reveal.
“I’m surprised she was able to get away with it for so long,” said sophomore Sinclair Target, 19, of Birva Patel, 27, who toted around a backpack as she mingled with students, entered the school’s classrooms and hung out at its library.
“You need [an ID] card to do pretty much everything. I’m surprised she managed to do so much for so long without one.”
Patel gained access to the Ivy League campus at least as early as last March — and immediately became known as a bizarre character.
“She was very strange and socially awkward,” said Carly Ichniowski, 18, an architecture student who last week met the impostor known as “Rhea Sen.”
“What she said didn’t make sense. She said she was from Carman [a residence hall], but she didn’t actually know anything about Carman, and she said she lived in a room that didn’t exist.”
Another freshman, George Joseph, 18, said “Sen” recently approached him and a friend on their way to a nighttime orientation outing to the Bronx Zoo and gave them wrong directions, leaving them in a “bad” neighborhood.
He said her shaky English made him suspicious of her claim to be Indian born but Philadelphia raised.
Joseph ran into her again on a bench on campus last week.
“She was edgy,” he said. “I asked what classes she was taking, and she mumbled something general like ‘chemistry.’ I asked her where she lives, and she said, ‘Why are you asking so many questions?’ ”
Patel was “so weird and creepy,” added freshman Hannah Smolar.
Patel’s LinkedIn page says she attended the New Jersey Institute of Technology. Her last known address is a Newark apartment, but she hasn’t lived there since last year.
Patel first was arrested for trespassing at Columbia’s Uris Hall on March 5 after being spotted by a security guard who knew she had been warned not to be there, Manhattan court records state.
She was offered a deal that would erase the arrest if she stayed out of trouble and abided by an Aug. 20 order banning her from Columbia for two years.
But Thursday night, students alerted officials to her presence at Columbia’s Low Library, and she was again arrested for trespassing.
The next day, her 27th birthday, she got another plea offer: Stay out of trouble and that arrest would also be erased.
But Saturday afternoon, she again was spotted at Uris Hall — and busted for trespassing and criminal contempt of court.