<p>A friend of mine, who got ino Columbia early decision, recently got caught blatantly cheating by one of his teachers. His teacher freaked out, and it now appears as if my friend will be suspended. He had been given a take home test for a class, and was caught copying all the answers from another student.</p>
<p>If he is suspended, do you think his application will be rescinded? m-r,b</p>
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haha wat? our teachers give takehome tests knowing exactly that we’d do that =P</p>
<p>I think so. Academic integrity is highly stressed at colleges–especially top colleges. Tell your friend to kiss Columbia goodbye.</p>
<p>it all depends on if columbia finds out. i assume the mid-year reports have already gone out.</p>
<p>If he was suspended, Columbia will definitely find out. Even if it doesn’t go out on the midyear report, the guidance counselor might call–or it might go out on the final report.</p>
<p>“haha wat? our teachers give takehome tests knowing exactly that we’d do that =P”</p>
<p>You cheat? Have you no sense of integrity? No sense of dignity?
What’s worse, you find it amusing.</p>
<p>I agree with kwu…</p>
<p>Um, you shouldn’t do that on any exam, regardless of whether it’s take-home or not. I don’t care if the whole school is exchanging answers- it doesn’t change the fact that it’s cheating. Hope you learn your lesson the hard way. </p>
<p>To the OP, it all depends on what the school discloses. I sincerely doubt he can stay in once/if Columbia finds out- cheating is rightfully a deal-breaker.</p>
<p>i guess mine is a different type of take-home test, since the teachers expect and encourage us to exchange answers. (they are graded like tests tho)</p>
<p>considering many people exchange answers right in front of the teacher during class and she does not care and even answers their questions, i think you may be talking about something different.</p>
<p>If the counselor hasn’t sent in Midyear, he has to include the cheating on it. If he/she has, then it’ll go onto the final report. So in the end your friend is screwed… Unless, of course, the counselor also lies, in which case the whole school will be blacklisted if Columbia finds out (and they probably will - I’d bet there’ll be more than enough people to whistleblow the whole thing).</p>
<p>Cheating will get back at you. Le Chatelier’s Principle.</p>
<p>^lol just learned that yesterday.</p>
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which means the school probably won’t lie. too much to risk.</p>
<p>but i do know people who have plagiarized, gotten caught and reported, and have still gotten into HYP</p>
<p>“he does not care and even answers their questions”</p>
<p>Incompetence does not free you from culpability.
Would you kill someone if you knew you could get away with it?
Even, say, if a member of law enforcement provided you with the murder weapon and promised not to indict you?</p>
<p>Same ****, you’re still bound by moral integrity.</p>
<p>“but i do know people who have plagiarized, gotten caught and reported, and have still gotten into HYP”</p>
<p>They are utter failures as human beings and do not deserve to be where they are.</p>
<p>“Same ****, you’re still bound by moral integrity…They are utter failures as human beings and do not deserve to be where they are.”</p>
<p>wow kwu, calm down.</p>
<p>yeah, geez. can i move to your world of moral absolutes? life would be a lot simpler.</p>
<p>?i dont get what the problem is. The teacher assigns take-home tests so that we can exchange answers and learn from each other. Then she grades them as real tests so we can have grade boosters because of how insane our inclass tests are. It’s not incompetence, it’s just the teacher’s way of teaching, the way that the take-home tests are designed, the goal of which is to make us truly learn the material. Is that any different than conferring with other people on homework? The teacher also answers questions about the take home test and sometimes gives answers to hard problems. In a real test that would not happen, so do you say that I should not ask questions when I have them, and not put down the right answer when she clearly tells us? Would that also be considered cheating? You seem to would consider that cheating, too, according to your argument, which really is overly excessive, no? </p>
<p>Your analogy is flawed, the law-enforcement officers do not control the people that you’re going to kill while the teacher does control what we can and can’t do with HER tests. That’s just the way that it works in my class. Perhaps your school is different, and your definition of a take-home test is different (which I can say definitely is), so don’t jump to conclusions about other peoples’ situations.</p>
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They are human beings, and human beings make mistakes. I don’t say that I condone plagiarizing, as I don’t plagiarize or cheat since the example with take-home tests I do not and nobody else considers cheating. I just gave it as an example to where a lapse in judgement was not the end of the world. The schools were notified of them having plagiarized in their freshman year and deemed that it was not overly inappropriate as to deserve a straight rejection, and the person’s stats for the rest of their high school year were good enough and so they were admitted. Again, I don’t think that you should jump to conclusions and judge someone by a small mistake they made when even colleges (which are generally very strict with integrity) thought that it was forgivable.</p>
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You will find in college they are very very strict about cheating. Every class my daughter has they are given lengthy information about ‘academic integrity’. This includes not copying each others homework let alone copying a take home test. The consequences are pretty dire.</p>
<p>swimcatsmom: read my post before yours. I understand that if such conferring with other people is not allowed, I would not do it. However, I’m sorry that I brought up the example of my class’s takehome tests since obviously they are not the same kind of takehome tests that other schools seem to give.</p>
<p>Cheaters lose eventually. I know people who cheat and get into the tippy-top schools… sucks for those of us who don’t cheat and don’t get in, but in the end, karma comes back to you 
Also, a cheater doesn’t learn as much!</p>
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if only this was true, but as far as i know it’s just a cliche that makes non-cheaters feel better >_></p>
<p>the above example with the columbia student proves that karma does come back; however there are far more examples where it doesn’t o.o</p>
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<p>It can sometimes be a very fine line. For instance my daughters college chem prof knows and expects them to work together on (their horribly difficult) homework. But they cannot copy each others workings or answers. In his case every student gets their own set of homework problems (same problem different numbers for 150 students). Otherwise, personally, I am not sure how you work together and help each other and avoid your work looking the same. Glad I am not the one walking the line.</p>