fake teacher recs - what should i do?

zzzboy · August 17, 2008, 12:55am

“Assumptions, assumptions, assumptions. Try this: Back it up. PROVE that the person who got snitched will find out that the OP anonymously did this even though the school is covering it up for him. Also prove that this kid will risk his life and his family’s. Oh wait, you can’t! Imagine that…”

LOL, baelor, you ARE naive. finally, a post that exposes it.

PROVE that his life and his family’s will be at risk? are you kidding me? have you even heard of the witness protection program? obviously its for offenses much more severe than cheating (which isnt even a crime), but they still relate. the feds dont KNOW that the witness who turned in the drug lord will get harmed. i guess we should do away with the program then according to your logic, right? who are you to determine how dangerous a person is?

now, we dont KNOW that the cheater will retaliate if he finds out, but the is possibility is very real. the other people in the thread concerned about his safety and i are trying to HELP the op. do you guys not see that? unfortunately, the only way to avoid retaliation is:

1) stay anonymous. it looks like the OP has stayed anonymous thus far, but if the OP wsa the only guy the cheater confessed to, then thats bad.

2) not tell at all. plain and simple.

it doesnt even matter anymore. hopefully the OP stays anonymous, otherwise i would seriously be worried.

Baelor · August 17, 2008, 1:31am

“BTW Baelor you make it seem like selfishness is bad. It seemed like your the only one in the world that do stuff that’s not your own gain.”

Uh, I’m not the only one who cares about other people. Tons of people do things that are right and don’t benefit themselves. Surprisingly, most of the kids who do community service work extensively won’t report much of it. There are tons of examples of selfless people. Selfishness when it starts to affect things like honesty and integrity is bad. Who knew?

“HAve you ever compete for a job against another applicants? God isn’t that selfish. Thinknig only about yourself and not the other applicants. There are many acts of selfishness.”

What on earth are you talking about? These situations aren’t comparable at all. Getting a job honestly isn’t morally wrong. What is wrong with you?

“If you have a job, are you doing it for yourself? Would that be selfish? According to you as long as you want to gain something from doing it but would not do it for free then it is selfish.”

No, NOT doing something because you don’t benefit from it is selfish. Posters kept saying, “You don’t gain anything from it, don’t do it.” How on earth is that not selfish?

“PROVE that his life and his family’s will be at risk? are you kidding me? have you even heard of the witness protection program?”

No, FIRST, before even claiming that his family is in danger, PROVE that it is at all reasonable that the culprit will see through the completely coherent and likely story of the administration that doesn’t mention the tip at all. Once the guy knows something is up, PROVE that he will correctly know it was the OP. Then PROVE he is in danger. Many levels, yes? I find the conclusion that you are making incredibly far-fetched. Unless, of course, this child is truly a genius and capable of strategic thinking that only characters in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms possess.

“obviously its for offenses much more severe than cheating (which isnt even a crime), but they still relate. the feds dont KNOW that the witness who turned in the drug lord will get harmed.”

HELLO? WITNESS protection program? That means they SAW the incident. This kid won’t even know there was a “witness” at all if the administration doesn’t mention they got a tip.

“i guess we should do away with the program then according to your logic, right? who are you to determine how dangerous a person is?”

Read my posts, yes? I’m not doubting that the kid will be ****ed and might be a danger. I’m saying there’s a chance, but violent retaliation is still iffy in my opinion. The difference here is that he would have to correctly guess that the administration is covering up a tip that they got, and then he would have to deduce that the OP did indeed give the tip. Versus believing that the administration caught the error when the teachers and GC were talking. The first scenario is SO much more likely, I’m sorry.

“1) stay anonymous. it looks like the OP has stayed anonymous thus far, but if the OP wsa the only guy the cheater confessed to, then thats bad.”

The kid won’t even know there was a tip. That’s the thing.

zzzboy · August 17, 2008, 1:38am

nahh im pretty sure he could sift through the cracks. all he has to do is figure out if a student reported him or if the teachers found out by themselves. eventually, someone will accidently fess up that a student reported him.

then all he has to do is remember who he told his dirty little secret to. once again, i said that its only going to be dangerous if the cheater only told the OP. if he told many people, then yea nothings gonna happen.

galoisien · August 17, 2008, 1:39am

Or, he gets thrown in prison for fraud. Yay!

Baelor · August 17, 2008, 1:42am

“nahh im pretty sure he could sift through the cracks. all he has to do is figure out if a student reported him or if the teachers found out by themselves. eventually, someone will accidently fess up that a student reported him.”

Right, when he threatens the teachers in an alley with a switchblade? Right… I mean, are you for real? If he gets caught, it’s FRAUD. There are possible legal consequences, which means that his a** gets busted. I really don’t think that his primary concern will be interrogating faculty members to find who ratted him out, if anyone.

amciw · August 17, 2008, 1:42am

If the OP is the only person the culprit mentioned his dishonesty to…he may jump to conclusions.

Baelor · August 17, 2008, 1:46am

So if he figures it all out, then he MAY retaliate violently. Please don’t assume it’s a given, because it’s not. A person got majorly screwed over at my school this year, doing stuff even worse than this kid. Nothing happened. That doesn’t mean it won’t with this kid, but assuming that it will is also jumping to conclusions.

If they find out he committed fraud, the OP then can take other actions to protect himself. There will likely be legal problems as well (I’m not sure if the kid has actually broken a law, or just the contract itself), and those will probably take up most of the time of this kid. If he does something to compound his problems, THAT would in fact ruin his life. I wouldn’t worry at this point about it. Just let it play out for right now.

zzzboy · August 17, 2008, 1:47am

baelor, i never mentioned coercion.

the teachers are well aware not to release the OP’s name, but they probably do NOT know that its important not to reveal that a student reported this incongruity AT ALL. they would probably casually mention that a student reported it, but they wont release the name. thats still a big problem.

i hope the OP remembered to mention what i said above.

and yea, amciw brings another good point.

edit: sorry i mean the teachers dont know the OP name because the OP did it anonymously, but hopefully he mentioned that they shouldnt reveal that they were tipped off.

as you posted earlier, baelor:

“I am student with blahblahblah, and I have reason to believe (he told me in person) that he forged his recommendations. I heard him telling students that blahblah and blahblah wrote the recommendations, but before he had told me that blahblah and blahblah did. When I asked why he had said different names, he told me that he had simply forged them.”

bad. very bad. the OP should tell the teachers to act like they found out themselves. then he would be totally safe.

Bay · August 17, 2008, 1:56am

Not necessarily, as it is possible the Yale could have discovered the fraud on its own. Either through a random audit of applications, or a belated follow-up inquiry about something in the cheater’s files, it is plausible that Yale might have discovered the fraud without OP’s help.

zzzboy · August 17, 2008, 1:58am

@ the OP

email the teachers again and tell them not to even mention that a student, or anyone, tipped them off. tell them to act like they found out randomly.

threads done. if the OP does that, then everything is ok.

Newjack88 · August 17, 2008, 2:21am

Look at the OP’s story. There is no way Yale could find out on their own.

laxtaxi · August 17, 2008, 6:15am

Gauloisien: I was curious about South Portland because I see that you are starting at UVA. It strikes me as relatively unusual for a kid from Maine to seek out UVA, it seems most prefer to stay in New England. So I was curious if you graduated from Waynflete or another private school. Only out of curiosity, nothing to do with this debate! Are you going on a Jefferson?

Screwitlah: I disagree totally with your aspersions and negativity around this thread. I think it has been very revealing on an important issue of morality and ethics. I have a very strong view that OP should have confronted the Yalecheater to figure out if it was true. I originally thought OP should have told him if he doesn’t turn himself in, OP will. Because of opinions expressed here I have tempered that - while that’s how I might have handled it, I respect those who would not feel comfortable doing so.

I found this thread so interesting I have posed the dilemma to a number of people off-line, starting with my family. As mentioned before, spouse says “I would have behaved consistent with who I am - I would have been really angry at the cheater, have considered doing something about it, then would have done nothing and internalized my anger until it went away.” D, on the other hand, said she would have confronted the Yalecheater and told him she thought that he was d**khead for cheating when obviously he had other attributes, and would have told the teachers whose names he forged. Last night we went out to dinner with friends and I posed this dilemma to them. H was adamant that Yalecheater should be revealed. W felt that what’s done is done, what’s the point.

I guess my point is that, as strongly as many of us feel about this, it is a good exercise to think through. I am shocked how many people have responded that there’s nothing to be done and walk away. But I have learned a great deal from reading those opposing views.

galoisien · August 17, 2008, 9:02am

But I’m Asian! And 1.5G’er. New England is more of a smothering nurse whose apron strings must be cut, not a “comfort zone”. And why do you ask if I went to a private school? So far I’ve only found two other UVA students in my state though, which is strange because the statistics tell me they enroll at least 30 students from Maine every year.

I started college apps pretty late actually, so I basically had little feedback from parents, friends or teachers/GCs when doing my school choices. And naww, I’m just an AccessUVA kid. :)

xbankx · August 17, 2008, 9:10am

Laxi: No one likes cheaters. I personally hate cheaters. A lot of people in my school ask me to help them cheat at tests but I don’t help them because it is against my believes. But I can’t really stop them can I? FOr me, I always have an hands off policy against these cheater because if I don’t help them I’m not their friend. But if i snitch on them, I become their enemy. Enemies is the last thing you want in you high school life. After a while, you do have to know how to tolerate them. If you ever “snitch” in high school these days, you basically become a outsider from the school community. It may not be the same as when you were in high school but this is the reality now. Ousted in high school is something you never want. I was acutally lucky since in ym group of friend basiclly no one cheated.

Even though my friend and I always laugh when a cheater gets caught. Buut ahnds-off, no snitch policy basically follwoed me through my HS life and it became a habit.

u_ername · August 17, 2008, 9:19am

Okay, so i was bored and couldn’t sleep, so I read through the first ten pages. Now the decision was already made by the OP, so it doesn’t really matter anymore. But I’ll still share my opinion.

Although usually I am against snitching, this time I believe the OP should tell the teachers. The people who are hurt by this is the teachers, not Yale. It’s more important to the teachers than to yale.

However, I find this event very fishy. Teachers aren’t blind or stupid. They will realize somethings wrong when all of a sudden, he gets 400-500 students asking him for rec letters…

Also, I don’t agree with why the OP should tell with the other people (especially baelor).

Yes baelor. Because he signed a contract, he deserves whatever, because ofcourse, some signature on a piece of paper is worth more than a person’s life right? I mean it’s a CONTRACT. It’s divine. You just can’t go against a contract.

Chances are, Yale is going to give this person a bigger punishment than he deserves, because they want to discourage people from cheating.

If you read through the posts, you’ll see mostly flame from people who snitch, while people who don’t snitch tries to reason (however flawed YOU THINK it is) calmly.

Again, what is right and what is wrong? There is no clear definition. You can’t say that non-snitchers are wrong.

Baelor, it’s not all about mememememe. I am doing the person a favor by not turning him in (and make his life a lot harder). But ofcourse, that’s just wrong, because you can’t help someone who SIGNED A FREAKING CONTRACT can you? CONTRACT IS GOD! IT’S HIGHER THAN GOD. I mean who in the right mind would help a person who made a mistake?

And as for the old lady analogy, first of all, that is a lot worse. If you don’t help the old lady, she gets hurt. If you don’t snitch, no one gets hurt. I would most definitely help a old lady if someone was hurting her. However, if I knew beforehand that if I tried to help, not only will the old lady be hurt even more, I will also get injured badly, I wouldn’t help. Does that make me a coward? Did I do the wrong thing, because the right thing would be to help the old lady?

and golaisien, you have been brainwashed by the western media on how much china suck, not others brainwashed by china.

laxtaxi · August 17, 2008, 9:39am

Galoisien, you said you are asian, you’re obviously smart, you got into UVA on a competitive scholarship and your username is a reference to algebraic concepts, therefore I deduce that you are good at Math! I’d like to say that I knew what gauloisien meant, but I didn’t. Thank you wikipedia.

That is a propos of nothing on this thread. I’m just proud of myself for figuring that out. Honestly I had never heard of Access UVA, I googled it and it sounds like a tough process for acceptance, congratulations to you. And you’re right, it’s hard enough to get most public school graduates in Maine to consider going to any college, let alone go out of state. The idea of leaving mother New England is far too scary for most. Except brainy Asian math students like you who recognize there’s a world beyond the Kittery bridge.

It’s not their fault, though. The educational system mandates in Maine require teaching the history of Maine but not the history of Europe or the world. So kids in Maine learn about how the Wabanakis made debris huts and left tall mounds of mollusk shells, and nothing about the Treaty of Versailles.

Hey, you didn’t fake your recommendations, did you? We might have to turn you in. Or not. Depends if you are the violent type who would scare the h**l out of zzzboy, xbankx and company.

Just kidding, fellas. Just lightening this up a bit.

galoisien · August 17, 2008, 10:14am

Um, Yale is going to be this guy’s last worry. This guy is looking at a couple of years in jail for fraud.

Must … not … make comparisons between cheating, rape, and prison.

Um … I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I criticise America to Americans, I criticise Singapore to Singaporeans. (Cuz there’s no need to preach to the choir … ) It’s not like I am unaware of the hallmarks of the PRC.

(By the way, China is a country. The PRC is a state. You cannot simply omit recognition of the FIRST CHINESE REPUBLIC.)

Furthermore, your dismissal of agreements of honor as “just a contract” is disturbing to me. For all the touted Asian traits of collectivism or harmony or whatever, you seem to display a lack of respect for the individual actions that maintain social order. Breaking a contract is a very serious thing.

Of course, you are not always compelled to seek the maximum damage under the law. Indeed, there are things called grace and mercy, and adhering to strict legalism can sometimes result in more damage to society (a theme of Les Miserables). But does this kid deserve this kind of grace and mercy? Why do you think mercy should be given?

If you want to go down that route, let us ask what your value is, and what criteria you judge it by.

galoisien · August 17, 2008, 10:40am

laxtaxi: Uh … well, AccessUVA is entirely need-based. Admissions is basically the only competitive thing I’ve come up against so far. And oh yeah, course selection on ISIS where you have class waitlists. Probably work-study is the next big competitive thing.

I don’t know about the entire demographic of public school graduates in Maine. Honestly, I think the fault lies in the public school system (I support school vouchers) and 87% of the people in my high school class went on to either community college (about half) or a four-year institution, and 8% went on to some kind of vocational training. And of course, I haven’t studied differences between state education systems, so I am not really sure how Maine stands with other states in the country. In some rural areas I think we fall below the national average, but the academic differential (as well as the strength of the correlation of student economic background to academic performance) is less pronounced than in say, the inner cities in many parts of the US. Now, the amount of people in my graduating class who went to schools that the average CCer would consider as a borderline match-safety was like 6%, and my val turned down Tufts for BU for financial reasons (she had a 27k gap), but I don’t get the feeling that Maine public school graduates face more difficulty in general than say, a student going to public school in Texas, or Rhode Island.

Oh by the way, I’m not really a “Math student”. I like math, but not as an end to itself. I’m actually more into linguistics and cognitive science, which draws upon a diverse array of disciplines. To me, it makes no sense to differentiate students as either having aptitudes for the humanities OR the sciences. The story of Galois simply fascinates me, though. :)

VeryHappy · August 17, 2008, 10:48am

Collegebound2009:

You did the right thing. There is no question about it.

I’m rather shocked at the differences of opinion here.

poetsheart · August 17, 2008, 11:40am

People who engage in a cheater’s mentality, who find such things as forging teacher’s signatures on faked college recommendation letters as “harmless” or minor, are the same types of people who later go on to cheat on a grand scale. Enron is a prime example of this cheater’s mentality, ending in ultimate and horrible destruction. How many people were harmed by Lay and Co.'s fudging of the truth? How many lives destroyed? Perhaps, if someone had “snitched” much sooner, it all could have been avoided.

What happens when the Airliner mechanic signs off on documents, stating that he fixed a reported mechanical problem, when he instead just went home because he was “just too tired”? What harm is there in “fudging the truth”? Or when the Airline itself fudges its safety record while foregoing safety inspections that are meant to safeguard the flying public? A little cheat here. A little cheat there. And soon enough, you’ve got planes falling out of the sky with hundreds of lives onboard. The person who thinks that cheating is a minor offense, while “snitching” is a major no-no, has a seriously flawed sense of moral judgement.

I was a bit bothered, however, by the OP’s avowed hatred of the alleged cheater. Could his vehement antipathy toward this guy (who—poor sap—thinks of him as a friend) be the real motivation for his outrage, and resulting actions? I would never take action to report someone to the authorities unless I was pretty sure that cheating had actually occurred. I too, was wondering how the forging of teacher recommendations could be carried out by the alleged cheater. My kids attended an inner city high school, but there are very stringent safeguards to assure that teacher recs. are authentic. After one hands one’s teacher the recommendation forms and envelope, he never again can touch that form. The teacher must fill out the form and personally deliver it to the guidance dept, where each recommendation is affixed with a school seal, and the whole package of recs for that student to each school is affixed with another seal and affirmed by a guidance counselor as being certified for authenticity. The school sends out the recommendation package. The student has not seen the forms after he/she has given them to his teacher to fill out. I believe many schools employ a similar system. What about the OP’s school? I’m assuming his knows what their policy and procedure on teacher recommendations entails. Why would he believe the “cheater” was telling the truth, really? Because he hates the guy? If his best friend had flippantly said, “I faked them.”, would he be so quick to believe it was true, and feel so “compelled” to report this supposed breach of ethics? Or would he want to be darn sure of the truth before doing something that might bring grief (even if only momentary) to a “friend”?

Look, I believe it’s entirely possible that the supposed cheater is indeed a scum bag, self-satisfied, moral slug, who might one day go the way of Ken Lay, if someone doesn’t stop him before it’s too late. But I wonder if the OP is acting purely out of a sense of moral imperative, or if he just wants to screw someone he hates.

fake teacher recs - what should i do?

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