I also think it’s possible – maybe not likely, but possible – that the OP didn’t actually plagiarize, but got help, and now is in a panic because someone reworded a sentence for him and has him convinced that it’s illegal. As others have pointed out, there is a thriving, legal business in essay-writing help. And ask anyone whose child went to an expensive prep school…in-depth college app help is one of the things you pay for.
If the OP thinks he did something wrong, either he did or the tutor has him convinced he did. It’s a question worth asking. I like to assume the best of people until proven otherwise.
There is no “ethical and moral issue” here, as @al2simon suggests. The ethics and morals are clear: what the OP did (and more so, what his parents did) was wrong, fraudulent, and plagiarism; what the former tutor is doing is blackmail, which is felonious. There’s no moral dilemma, just a practical question regarding damage control. I don’t think anyone believes in the value of a “get out of jail free” card; but life imprisonment isn’t the solution, either.
This was not a simple mistake. It was a conspiracy to commit deliberate, premeditated fraud that has now spiraled into attempted blackmail.
This has nothing to do with satisfying strangers on the internet. This has to do with satisfying him or herself about the type of person they want to be.
There are a number of ethical paths the OP could follow. Not all of them involve turning himself in. But whatever path the OP picks, he or she should first and foremost make sure it meets the ethical standards that the OP wishes to uphold for themselves. And that is the primary lesson the OP needs to learn, not how to engage in “damage control”.
Yes and No. You are right that the original actions were unambiguously wrong, as is the blackmail. You are wrong in that it isn’t simply or even primarily a matter of “damage control” unless you are completely amoral.
Several posters have encouraged the OP to engage in more lies and/or counter-blackmail. The OP should reject their advice on moral grounds even if the advice might “work”.
Reading between the lines, my speculation is that the OP is applying to highly selective colleges in the US. At least 2 of these have Honor Codes that would create a moral obligation to turn him or herself in. OP should definitely not apply to these universities.
If I found out that one of my children had been involved with something like this, I would insist that they withdraw all their applications and take a gap year in which they could work on improving their moral character. I would not insist that they notify the colleges, but there is no way that I would send one of my children off to college knowing that they were such ethical failures and that I had failed so miserably as a father.
^ That might be a reasonably course of action for you, and for many others. I would agree that “damage control” without any significant impact on the OP that would carry over to future behavior is not likely to be effective. But taking the OP at face value, his parents sound at least as culpable, if not more so: “I did a terrible mistake of letting my parents ask my former tutor to write college essays for me.” Without knowing the details of the actual circumstances, it’s hard to tell how much responsibility the 17 year old applicant bears, vs. how much was done at the instigation of his parents. They’ve certainly “failed” far beyond anything in the scenario which you describe. It’s a bad situation all around. But it’s certainly not unique to this applicant:
I don’t think the OP needs to feel obligated to hire lawyers or to publicize his actions and possibly jeopardize his admission to any college at all, just to “protect” other people who are trying to commit fraud from this guy.
He can’t change what happened now, but he can learn from it and move on in an ethical manner he can feel good about. Withdraw all the fraudulent applications, and apply to a different list of schools with his own work.
I’ll reiterate that OP can upload a new essay on commonapp (his/her own obviously!!) There’s now a feature that allows students to change their essay for up to 3 essays - say you wrote one for your ED school that was perfect for that quirky ED school. You didn’t get in and you don’t want such a quirky essay as your “general” essay: you can upload a more general one for the RD round. Students don’t have to say why they upload a new essay and this is a feature that was actually requested by many professionals since students can have one essay for ED, one essay for January, and then realize they made a mistake and need to correct it !
The FIRST thing to do was to politely withdraw the application from the ED school.
@GMTplus7 Asinine judgement? He committed a crime. I would never do that. I was just responding to her because she said that he should tell the adcoms and try to get a second chance and not experience the punishment of getting blackballed.
I assumed s/he only applied to one ED school. If any non commonapp schools got the essay, s/he has to withdraw those applications too.
There’s no two ways about it. Any application with that essay must be withdrawn and the commonapp essay must be rewritten quickly, uploaded, and some EA apps sent. Doubtless the EA colleges won’t please OP’s parents* but there’s no alternative - whatever school was applied to must now be considered null and void.
Any app with that essay is radioactive
although one could do worse than Dickinson, Wooster, etc.
MYOS1634 was the first one on the right track. I’m going to tell you how you should have handled it. Normally, I would never do this for someone who attempted cheating, but there are elements that might help innocent people in the future.
What should have been done was to simply withdraw the ghost-written essay and supply a new one entirely of your own making. The only explanation necessary would have been that you “made a mistake”, which I think everyone can agree on. At this point, everything would have been more or less fixed. Should the blackmailer follow through on his threats, do you realize how it’s going to look when “his” essay is nothing like the essay on record?
I haven’t seen anyone yet ask how much money is at stake here and I’m curious what the demand was for.
I am not a lawyer, but to me elements 1-5 are clearly met. Element 6 is probably not met currently.
If the OP was admitted to the college then it is possible that Element 6 would be met. Having said that, extremely unlike to me that a college would sue, but pretty much 99.999% certain they would expel the applicant and keep any tuition payments. If the OP’s family tried to avoid paying their bill for tuition & fees (plus any financial aid that was granted) then it is definitely possible the college would file a fraud claim.
But whether or not this is civil fraud, it is definitely an ethical / moral question.
@al2simon Civil fraud is not a crime. It is a tort.
Regardless, as I stated earlier, I find it unlikely that the university could prove injury whether the student was admitted or not.
Calicash is 17 / 18 years old. I doubt she has thought much about these distinctions, but regardless I think her moral compass points due north on this even if she isn’t yet ready to pass the bar exam.
Why is there an assumption that the tutor will be believed? It is one person’s word against another’s and everybody seems to assume admissions officers will naturally believe a tutor. Why would they do so?
We don’t know yet if the tutor will be believed. If he’s a dope, its just one person’s word against another. He’ll sound like an angry twerp. But if he has a credible digital paper trail, it could look convincing.
I mean a chain of emails from, Hey, what if I wrote it for you? to, Dude that would be awesome! to, Here is the essay we agreed I would write… – that would be damaging. And if anyone even suggested, Hey, lets look at IP numbers, then that’s just death. I can’t see an admissions committee wanting to look beyond that, and they’d have no obligation to do so.
If no trail like that exists, then OP is OK.
ETA that sounds like I’m OK with fraud. I’m not. But OP should know how bad this is or isn’t, so he/she can make good decisions. I hate blackmailers as much as I hate frauds
My point is not about passing the bar exam or the direction of one’s moral compass. It’s about labeling someone a criminal who is not, and giving bad advice that going to the police will get OP in some kind of trouble, when it will not. @al2simon@aboutthesame@calicash
