<p>I’m reading “That Book About Harvard” by Eric Kester. Cheating was rampant at Harvard when he attended and apparently a widespread use of the drug adderall.</p>
<p>In the Harvard article I was struck by a comment written on the article by Former TA. Was a former TA at Harvard and for 5 years a resident tutor. At end of comment he says " The Solution? 1. Admissions: stop looking for activity stars, and start looking for students who are intellectually curious and care about learning." Come on ask them to look for intellectually curious kids-thats crazy talk.</p>
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<p>Another logical fallacy: “Activity Stars” and the intellectually curious are mutually exclusive. :rolleyes: When they are mutually exclusive, they are rarely admitted unless those stars are also celebrities, and even then, some celebrities have actually achieved academically.</p>
<p>“Kaavya Viswanathan was allowed to graduate without penalty and go on to law school.”</p>
<p>Kaavya was never caught cheating on a Harvard exam.</p>
<p>28 students in a discussion session with a TA? This is the best education money can buy?</p>
<p>^The premium paid is not for the quality of education mini. I thought that this was well known.</p>
<p>group cheating is an essential skill when one works in a place like congress.</p>
<p>Will be interesting to see how this all plays out. There was talk of having the students take a one year leave of absence. So how would that work in terms of class number balance?</p>
<p>Let’s assume 100 of the students were sophomores - so they take their Junior year off. Am sure Harvard could quickly fill those 100 spaces with transfer students, but then what happens when the 100 come back next year? Then won’t that class (which are Sophomores now) have 100 additional students? Thats a lot of students to absorb into a class.</p>
<p>Am I the only one here who doesn’t think this should even be a news-worthy item?</p>
<p>This sort of cheating happens <em>all the time</em>. People collaborate when it’s against the rules, “get answers from that friend of a friend of a friend who is a genius at this stuff,” take advantage of older friends who took the class before where the same material is being re-used, etc.</p>
<p>@ epiphany,</p>
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<p>How does an admissions committee judge intellectual curiosity? Grade point average? I suspect there’s a school of thought which holds one can identify the brightest by noting students who take the most challenging course load, yet manage to be involved deeply in many extracurriculars. There are only so many hours in a day. Something’s got to give. Denise Pope, in Doing School, did point out that the “best” students, aiming at the Ivy League, were most likely to cheat:</p>
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<p>[Everybody</a> Does It - SFGate](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Everybody-Does-It-2523376.php#ixzz25PxxQNfq]Everybody”>http://www.sfgate.com/education/article/Everybody-Does-It-2523376.php#ixzz25PxxQNfq)</p>
<p>And we’re seeing the same reasons put forward for cheating on this thread. Everyone does it. Have to cheat because of GPA. etc. </p>
<p>I don’t see an open book, take home final as “poor teaching.” Before the internet, fellow students at my college took take home finals all the time. I never had the impression anyone cheated on it. I think you really have to work at it to cheat on an “open-book, open-internet, open-note” take-home final.</p>
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<p>They judge it by a variety of means. They judge it by academic initiative taken on and off campus. They judge it by that quality specifically being referred to by that or similar terms, in teacher recommendations. They judge it by how the student comes across in personal essays (and in some cases, by papers submitted as part of an application); they judge it both by what the student chooses to write about and how that writing unfolds (compared to standardized test writing submissions + teacher comments about the student’s writing, etc.). They do even (on occasion) additionally judge it by the in-person interview: how the student answers live questions, what the student chooses to talk about. Etc.</p>
<p>As to hours in a day, this is why there are so many intellectually gifted students at highly ranked Universities. Because they don’t need to spend every waking hour doing homework. They can actually successfully juggle academic requirements and high-level achievements simultaneously.</p>
<p>Agree Periwinkle! It’s my impression and vague memory that open book tests involve far more than searching for answers on the internet (or pre-internet) or in notes. They generally require deeper thought and force the student to draw on the notes and readings to construct a thesis supported by those notes and internet.</p>
<p>And, epiphany, I think there’s an enormous overemphasis on rewarding “activity stars.” Are they mutually exclusive with truly intellectually curious kids? Of course not. But the truly intellectually curious kids know that they’d best sacrifice some of that intellectual curiousity and build up those activity points if their goal is to be admitted to one of the power schools. They’d better make sure there’s a sport on that resume, some sort of leadership position featured on it, and the “right” array of courses rather than the ones they might prefer: AP math or science something-or-other vs. photography or journalism or sculpture. My own bias at this point is to be suspicious of any kid who looks too perfect. But then I wouldn’t necessarily be looking for the perfect resume or leadership or a particular resume. </p>
<p>I’m completely on board with Denise Pope. I’ve heard eyewitness accounts of cheating rings among the highest achieving students in high schools on both coasts and I’ve seen kids cheat on their activities by representing positions and then not fulfilling the obligations of those positions or by exaggerating the position itself. I don’t excuse the practice one bit but I see why it’s flourished. When it seems that such a larger-than-life profile is required to gain admission at more than just a few top schools, kids become increasingly desperate to create that profile.</p>
<p>"As to hours in a day, this is why there are so many intellectually gifted students at highly ranked Universities. Because they don’t need to spend every waking hour doing homework. They can actually successfully juggle academic requirements and high-level achievements simultaneously. "</p>
<p>See, this is another place where I disagree. In order to do quality work, there is a requirement to spend time on it, intellectually gifted or not. One of my kids wrote a winning history paper using primary sources collected from various historical societies in our area. It required hours of painstaking research and culling through masses of indecipherable notes. She’s a smart kid and an able writer but there’s just no shortcut for some assignments.</p>
<p>How do you judge intellectual curiosity-my memory of my ivy league interview with an alumni many many years ago and the fact that I very quickly figured out I wasn’t Ivy league material based on the questions I was asked.</p>
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<p>Wrong. Simply wrong. Intellectual curiosity is not measured in linear time. </p>
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<p>But the intellectually gifted will spend less time on it, and their giftedness will be apparent in ways other than long assignments. Intellectual curiosity is more comprehensive than a linear calculation.</p>
<p>For those of us whose careers include both education and college admissions, it’s obvious who is and who is not intellectually gifted, and it’s usually not rocket science to discern that. It’s also obvious who wastes their giftedness, and who feels “entitled” to college admissions due to giftedness (which is a turn-off to the colleges). (Such as, I got a great SAT score; you should admit me despite my lousy grades because I’m “above” homework.)</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s an impossible task to judge intellectual curiosity but it does take time and requires a different perspective. Alumni interviews aren’t all that useful because by and large the alums have no real say in the process. If interviews were taken more seriously, that could be a valuable way to gain insight. Essays reveal a lot about a kid even when heavily edited and scripted. One of my girls wrote an essay about her community that was pretty unorthodox and earned her admission into an elite LAC. The admissions officer actually mentioned aspects of her essay in welcoming the new freshman class. Class choices help to measure a person’s intellectual curiosity: did the student take academic risks? Did the student make the most of his high school’s offerings (and by this I do not mean the usual slate of AP classes). Did the person pursue an academic or quasi-academic activity to a high level and win any sort of recognition in this pursuit? (theater, writing, Latin, Greek, math, science, art).</p>
<p>I guess my feeling is that adcoms should stop looking for a picture of perfection that often isn’t at all real.</p>
<p>Sorry epiphany, I don’t get your answer. Intellectual curiosity is not measured in linear time? What does that have to do with my impression borne from experience that there are boxes that must be checked off if one’s goal is admission to an elite school? There are limited hours in the day and any kid has to choose how to spend them. If you have to be at sports practice 2 hours each day and (supposedly) leading a club meeting 2 hours each week, and orchestra practice 3 hours each week, by definition it means that you’ve removed time that would have spent otherwise. Let me be clear that I’m not dismissing these activities. They are worthy endeavors and for some kids they are true passions. But I’ve heard many a gifted student, high school and college level, report sadly that he has no time for reading now because of all the other demands on his time. So what about the student who preserves that space and commits the time to reading and self-guided study rather than building up the standard resume? I’d be willing to give that kid the credit for that self-study as much as I give the kid credit for the flurry of activities.</p>
<p>To your contention that the intellectually gifted spend less time on a given assignment, I have to respond that that is wrong, simply wrong. The intellectually gifted often spend more time not less time on a complex assignment. That’s my point. And I think my point was also that there are assignments that require time for all students regardless of ability level, not that there are different ways to show giftedness. That’s true of course and there are different forms of giftedness besides.</p>
<p>Finally, I think it’s kind of silly to suggest that the truly gifted can show involvement in extracurriculars because they don’t have to spend time on homework. Not all homework can be completed quickly and not all homework should be completed quickly. And some homework is done more quickly by those who put less into it.</p>
<p>Just because someone is intellectually gifted doesn’t mean they’ll be super speedy. It’s about critical thinking and depth of understanding more than speed.</p>
<p>When I was in high school, it was generally true that the intellectually gifted required less time for assignments. That was the nature of the assignments. </p>
<p>At the local public school, it is not true at all that the intellectually gifted require less time for the assignments, except for a few rare assignments (some math, physics, and chemistry problem sets, some Latin sheets). In general, the assignments tend to be complex and–even more significantly with regard to the time requirements–open-ended. While a gifted student could complete work of a given quality faster than average, in practice, my observations suggest that the gifted students carried the assignment much further, and generally spent longer on the assignment than the average student.</p>
<p>Of course, all of this depends on the type of assignments in the local school. Perhaps the assignments in ephiphany’s children’s schools resembled those in my day more closely than the ones here in our area, now. Nothing wrong with that, actually. Overall, I suspect that I learned about as much, and it was certainly more efficient!</p>
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<p>QM, I am not talking about my (limited) personal experience. I’m talking about my professional experience. </p>
<p>Anyone who has actually spent significant time on elite campuses – instead of just speculating about assumptions and rumors – has encountered the disproportional numbers of the intellectually gifted there.</p>
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<p>Sigh. I never said that. I said that they have a superior capacity not shared by others. The argument was that supposedly every student must spend the same amount of time on demanding assignments. I’m telling you that that is simply untrue.</p>