<p>So long story short, I was taking a free response test in class and skipped one of the questions. Later, I realized the question was really simple and when the test was handed back in class, I wasn’t there. I went to the teacher’s office to get the test back. Then, wrote the answer to the question in really quickly and then went back a couple minutes later and told the teacher he missed it. A couple days later, the teacher asked me to come to his office and wanted me to sign a piece of paper where I could either accept the penalty of a 0 on the test (which drops my grade to a 75 even if I get a perfect score on everything else, which is nowhere near likely) or take the matter to student conduct court. What should I do? It’s my first offense and I’m just really scared. I realize I shouldn’t have done it, but accepting the punishment could cost me my scholarship. Should I confess or deny the accusations?</p>
<p>You’re basically asking if you should tell the truth and do the right thing–of course!</p>
<p>First off, realize how serious this is. I don’t mean to scare you, but you should be aware that the consequences here are fairly dire. Denying it will get you into even bigger trouble. At this point, you are not going to just magically get off the hook since you did genuinely cheat. Admit everything and give them a very genuine apology.</p>
<p>Title is misleading. You weren’t accused at all, you did something. Are you financially troubled?</p>
<p>Put it this way-
Confess, get screwed.
Deny it, get screwed even harder. </p>
<p>Face it, you messed up. Live up to it and maybe they’ll go easy on your punishment.</p>
<p>The scholarship I have requires a minimum gpa. If I accept the grade penalty, I will lose the scholarship.</p>
<p>If you don’t, you risk getting kicked out of the university and not being able to go to really any reputable university for a long time. </p>
<p>Priorities.</p>
<p>Risky call - but I’d fight it!</p>
<p>Actually one thing to realize is that the prof is probably certain you did something wrong. So you need some very very good excuse to get out of this if you choose to.</p>
<p>The prof is doing you a favor by letting you take the 0. You could be expelled for cheating, as the prof knows darn well you cheated. You are stuck paying a very high price for a stupid decision and action (and do not call it a mistake), but the best thing to do is accept the offer. It will be easier to get into another school if you have to withdraw for financial reasons that it will be if you have an expulsion to admit.</p>
<p>Why would you think you could get away with filling in an answer after the fact? Did you really think the prof hadn’t noticed your missing answer as he graded your test? You deserve to lose your scholarship; you cheated and scholarships are for capable, talented, students; not students who cheat for grades. You should have thought about the consequences before you made such a poor decision.</p>
<p>^I wouldn’t be that harsh. People make mistakes and learn from them. Just take the 0 and move on. Can you live without the scholarship?</p>
<p>Gotta think of the scholarship before you cheat on a FREE RESPONSE question, jesus. I highly doubt a professor could overlook an entire question. He definitely knows you cheated so just confess</p>
<p>I don’t know professors at your schools do it, but at my university, many professors make photocopies of graded tests before handing them back to the students, so that whenever students hand in their test for a regrade, they check the original test against the photocopy to make sure the student didn’t fill anything in after the fact to try and get more points (which is why professors always tell you that if you want a regrade, to write on another piece of paper, instead of on the test itself, why you think your test should be regraded). In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if your professor did the same tactic and that’s how he knew you cheated.</p>
<p>^ They do the same thing here, photocopying the tests. It will look really bad to the student conduct court if you try to fight it and the professor is able to produce a photocopy of your test that proves you cheated. Plus, if the professor graded the tests himself, he’ll probably remember grading that question. Especially given that it was completely blank before. It may be possible that a professor would miss part of an answer on a first grading, which may be legitimate cause for a regrade, but imo, it’s much less likely that a professor would somehow completely miss that an answer was there at all, which is what it sounds like you tried to convince this professor he did.</p>
<p>I would fess up if I were you. </p>
<p>I would say I’m sorry you’ll lose your scholarship, but I find myself agreeing with teachandmom. You really don’t deserve a scholarship.</p>
<p>Try to really learn a lesson from this. By that, I mean that you should admit that what you did was WRONG and should not be repeated, not just using it as a way to learn how not to get caught in the future.</p>
<p>Hard lesson learned… hopefully.</p>
<p>the OP seems to have disappeared. I hope he returns with an update.</p>
<p>I may be too late, but I think the OP should take W – just withdraw from the course and get a W on your transcript. Better than a C or D grade or worse.</p>