<p>Just speaking for myself, it is hard to have a “discussion” with you, when you do hit-and-run, post a link and disappear. It’s as if you wait to see if the topic gets traction, before letting us know more about your position. Be up-front about your thoughts- claim them, show some of the thought development and then let us have at them. Or, think twice about your reasons for this sort of baiting.</p>
<p>To be honest, we don’t need a sort-of school scenario, where a teacher drops a seeming hot potato in our laps and waits to see if we can manage it. </p>
<p>Sure, the gripers make more noise. About your tactic. Don’t hide behind links. It diminishes. And, since many of the links prove to be bogus, it doesn’t lend some aura of authority.</p>
<p>Nothing in post #1 encourages a talk about “how American higher education can be improved.” Same for other topics that only get a few sentences, blanket statements.</p>
<p>Bel…again I ask…what is your “hunt” here. You NEVER “discuss” anything. You post links to articles and then disappear. The only time you “discuss” is if someone happens to disagree with you.</p>
<p>You know…higher education was good enough for YOU. Guess you knew what to make of it, and you think this generation and their parents are a bunch of idiots. </p>
<p>Personally, I would rather my kids go to a traditional college with students in the same room for discussion…then to think only online resources will suffice. Both took online courses at one time or another and found them knowledge rich and interaction poor.</p>
<p>There are articles out there that show that more people lose their jobs because of an inability to work with others, than due to lack of knowledge. I don’t have the time or inclination to find or link these articles.</p>
<p>We “get it”… You don’t like higher education. You don’t think your kids need to attend a traditional college.</p>
<p>I edited out Beliasky’s comment about CC owners. It generally falls on the moderators to determine what is allowed and we do not pull any threads which are about an authentic published article (not a blog) related to education.</p>
<p>So we are going with a pretty low threshold.</p>
<p>For some reason, I do not find myself offended by Beliavsky’s posts. Most of his posts are fact based, so I don’t understand the problem, other than that some don’t agree with his conclusions, but that doesn’t make them wrong.</p>
<p>Moving on to, Bel wrote:</p>
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<p>Can you expand on this? Are you going to argue for something other than “lets get rid of all college athletics,” because that theme has been discussed to death here on CC, and you can search it.</p>
<p>btw, did you happen to watch any of the UMichigan v. Notre Dame game on TV last night? Seeing the 100,000+ crowd of enthusiastic fans might give you an inkling that college football isn’t likely to go away anytime soon. Better to deal with that fact and improve upon it than fight against it, imo.</p>
<p>40 news sources have picked up the Crimson’s survey as of this afternoon; I think someone should post a link to one of the news reports. </p>
<p>However, I do not think this discussion should be routed into criticizing athletes. It is quite possible the athletes are more likely to tell the truth about prior cheating, as their self-worth is not defined solely by academic prowess. A slightly longer quote would have been:
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<p>Shades of Blair Hornstine and Kaava Viswanathan. We have a problem. It is not solely Harvard’s problem, though. If you aren’t worried about America’s Best and Brightest cheating, you should be worried. These kids are a hand-selected group of the most impressive high school students in the country (world.) Why do they cheat? How have we, the adults in their lives, managed to create and tolerate a system in which the most elite students feel they need to cheat? </p>
<p>I suspect the high school cheating often arises from a lack of time. I feel tired whenever I read a list of courses and activities today’s high achievers are expected to master in high school. I believe in a rigorous education, but there are still only 24 hours in a day. Is there any way colleges could help tame the overachieving arms race in high school? I have nothing against demanding academic work, and interesting extracurriculars. If a brilliant kid has to cheat to keep everything in order, though, there is a point at which it teaches students the wrong things.</p>
<p>MIT limits the number of extracurriculars a student can mention to 5, if I remember correctly. It also tries to emphasize the range of SAT scores of admitted students. What else could help students to focus on what’s important in high school, rather than trying to outdo their peers?</p>
<p>Discussing how America’s higher education can be improved is worthwhile. What goes on at Harvard has very little to do with it, though, since the vast, vast majority of college students are not attending H or its peers. But in typical CC fashion, we have to pretend that H is all everyone ever thinks about. </p>
<p>If you dislike H’s morals or values or admission practices, feel free not to apply. It’s not as though anyone is forced through gritted teeth to HAVE to apply.</p>
<p>I am not defending cheaters–there is no excuse for such behavior. I am also not necessarily accepting the premise that most elite school athletes are academically under-qualified compared to their non-recruited peers.</p>
<p>However, that said, if a very rigorous school decides to lower admissions standards for a particular group of people and then goes on to burden that already less academically-qualified group with a heavy duty commitment that taxes them physically and time-wise, is it any wonder some of them crack? And why would it surprise you that more of them crack than their counterparts who don’t have to regularly travel out of state and who have 20+ more hours free per week in which to do their work? </p>
<p>If Harvard misjudges a student’s capability, they shouldn’t have to bear all the blame for any negative consequences, like the temptation to cheat. It is the student’s and parents’ responsibility to determine if the student is suitable for the school, regardless of having been admitted. My athlete D’s SAT, GPA, and course rigor were comparable to non-athletes at her top school. Still, she is not an academic super-star or genius, so we questioned whether she belonged there and we gave careful thought to whether she should attend.</p>
<p>Oddly, I think it is important to discuss the ethics of students at these “elite” institutions for various reasons, not the least of which is that they are frequently later involved in policy decisions effecting all of us. </p>
<p>I cannot be the only one who has noted an unfortunate lack of ethics among our country’s “leaders” at the governmental and corporate level, many of whom were students of these particular institutions. </p>
<p>It is unfortunate, but true, that our allegedly best students do not turn out to be particularly ethical out in the world. Why is this? Do they start this way? Do these institutions encourage this? Is it a combination? How can this be changed?</p>
<p>Good point. But the problems aren’t limited to Harvard or top schools. Our leaders come from many institutions. I think there’s a heightened sensitivity (and easy target) when the school named is Harvard, which has its rep, its role, its openness. I wonder if the higher percentage reflects some awareness that that what may have seemed OK is now suspect. Last year’s scandal was called collaboration, by many.</p>
<p>Um…doesn’t the article discuss their cheating in HIGH SCHOOL? I didn’t see where it discussed them cheating in college to “keep up”. As noted upstream, schools like Harvard have high admittance standards for athletes. And they are also very good in terms of providing academic support to all students who seek it…athletes or not.</p>
<p>I’m not anti athlete or anti Harvard, for that matter, but there does seem to be a crisis of ethics in higher education right now, IMHO. Part of this may well stem from the selection process, and part of it from the things kids feel they need to do to get ahead. Part of it may have always been in place. It’s an important conversation, for a lot of reasons. JMO</p>
<p>Not condoning cheating and ethics are always important to discuss. That said, this article is an entertaining piece, but we only know that 80% of the students queried completed some part of the survey. We don’t know how many answered these questions. It matters in terms of the veracity of the statistics. Also wonder why this is even news. Someone cheated at school. Was it once? Was it often? To what degree did they cheat? Look at their neighbor’s test? We don’t know any of this, but we’re ready to make judgements. No bad judgements allowed amongst this group of teenagers? Is someone who cheated once on a test morally inferior to someone who cheated on their girlfriend or routinely made fun of someone else or who illegally drank alcohol or used drugs? Ethics are extremely important, but so are accurate meaningful statistics and context. Beliavsky has an ax to grind. Ironically, Ivy athletes are just like his/her beloved prodigies: they are more likely than their peers to be successful.</p>
<p>That was not this year. When I applied in the 2011-2012 cycle, there was that limit to the number of ECs and awards you could include on your application.</p>