Can a university/college find out that Im lying in my application?

[amarkov]

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According to the following, quite a few students at UVA are investigated (or even put on “trial”!) for Honor Code violations, of whom a substantial fraction “leave [the university], admitting guilt”.</p>

<p>The Honor Committee</p>

<p>Apparently most of the departures are cheating cases (famously including a plagiarism scandal in 2001 that led to about 200 students investigated and more than 30 “leaving admitting guilt”).

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<p>That would seem to me to be a good thing. What is wrong with people who admit they were cheating being dismissed for cheating?</p>

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It does not follow that there is no constraint (created by Honor Codes and Honor Courts and Honor Kangaroo Trials and whatever effects these have on the campus culture) on people’s natural judgement of whether to report. The language of the Code quoted above is clear and refers to an unequivocally required “immediate reporting” of all violations directly known to the student. At the Davidson Code webpage there is an additional, somewhat medieval sounding, Honor Pledge certifying that a student knows of no Honor Violations associated with a given paper, exam, etc (such as other students cheating). It seems to me that if a wider UVA-like cheating scandal were to develop, then students who failed to report it could face reprisals. In such situations, students, in addition to following their internal ethical instincts, would have consider the strategic implications of possible Honor Code penalties when deciding whether to report the misconduct. It’s the latter consideration step whose presence, or imposition through a code, is opposite to any notion of ethics.

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<p>Yeah, and almost all colleges are have very clear and unequivocal language that alcohol may not be served to people who cannot legally drink it. That doesn’t mean that people under 21 can’t easily get alcohol on a college campus, because what is written down and what is actually done don’t necessarily agree. I highly suspect that when someone is actually expelled for failing to report an honor code violation, it’s more like “oh, I let him use my dorm room because I didn’t think he should get caught”.</p>

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The UVA numbers show that “leaves”, whatever those are in particular cases, are occuring every year for Honor Code violations. If there is an Honor Code with teeth it will, inevitably, have serious (and not necessarily fairly judged or competently investigated) ramifications for some of the accused violators who are informed upon by fellow students. Any source of pressure on some community members to volunteer accusations against others is very, very unsavory.

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<p>Do you have a system in mind that always results in fair judgment and competent investigations? That can catch cheaters without anyone being willing to report cheaters?</p>