If a student is found cheating on a standardized test (SAT, ACT, TOEFL, for example), and a school administrator finds out, should their letters of recommendation from the school be retracted?
What is the ethical thing to do here? Thanks for any and all feedback.
Are you a student or a parent? In one of your threads you say you’re the student and in another you say you’re the parent…
If you’re the student and you were caught cheating, I would expect your guidance counselor to send updates to all the colleges on your list. It wouldn’t be fair to the other students in your school to give one student a pass.
If you’re an adult, then I’m assuming you’re a parent, not a school administrator. If you worked for a high school you’d have guidelines to follow. If the student is your child, I’d help them create a list of safety schools. If it’s someone else’s kid, there’s nothing you can do but focus on your child’s journey.
Many school honor codes may not cover tests taken off campus, such as the TOEFL, so it isn’t as cut and dried as following a policy.
In fact, the school administration wouldn’t even find out about the cheating infraction unless the student self-reported, as TOEFL scores aren’t sent to the high school- they are sent to the student.
Your question was what happens if a school administrator finds out a student cheated on a standardized test. Is this a hypothetical situation or are you concerned about a specific incident? If you’re worried about a specific situation, it would help if you clarified what it is.
Hypothetical question: what is the ethical thing to do if a school administrator finds out a student cheated on a standardized test OUTSIDE of school?
If you have definitive 100% proof that can be backed up by evidence, then report it to college board or whoever with your proof. Hearsay or anything less than 100% will do nothing except make you look bad.
I can’t tell from your posts if you’re the parent or the child because your posting history includes both, but if this is hypothetical and you’re the high school student I wouldn’t worry about it. It wouldn’t change your outcome either way. I think students who cheat on the SAT/ACT get reported to their district – @“Erin’s Dad” would probably be able to tell you for sure), but how each district handles it is up to them. The guidance counselor could send an update to all the colleges, or they might note it on the transcript, or they could do nothing. If the school decides not to say anything, there’s not much you can do about it.
If it’s an international student and the test is the TOEFL, the student should worry very much! TOEFL is required for admission at many schools- if you cheat on it, your score can be invalidated, and then you don’t have that to send to colleges.
I believe the guidance counselor should contact the admissions office of each school the student applied to, explain what happened, and retract their recommendation.
Keep in mind LORs are written at the complete discretion of the recommender.
This includes reserving the right to retract them…especially for serious behavioral/ethical/criminal issues to the point the recommender feels s/he could no longer give a good LOR in good conscience.
Excellent point. I wonder if the average student realizes this?
I think it is less likely that the LOR would be retracted, but very likely that an update would be sent by fax or email to notify colleges of the incident.