Declining standards [thread is really about cheating, particularly in school]

[ucbalumnus]

@MWolf

Until recently, teen have not had access to this information, and were a lot less aware of just how unfair life was. In fact, Gen-Zs have a better moral compass than previous generations, and that is one of the reasons that they are willing to break rules. Not because they believe that they do not need to follow moral imperatives, but because they feel that these rules are immoral or were written in a manner which allows the rules to be circumvented by those with wealth and power.

Schneier on Security: : A Hacker’s Mind is a new book about gaming the system (which is called “hacking” in the book – doing stuff that is within the rules but of dubious ethics, against the intent of the rules, or which is available as a special interest exception in the rules). Many of the examples of “hacks” are much more available to those with wealth and power than they are to ordinary people (e.g. “hacking” the tax laws is easier if you have lots of many kinds of income and an army of tax lawyers and accountants than if your income is all ordinary W-2 income, or if you have the money to lobby legislators to include special interest provisions in legislation).

[MWolf]

@tamagotchi

My H emigrated from the Soviet Union along with his parents who are now quite elderly, but still living. His parents’ moral code is significantly different from what people in the US consider to be a good or strong moral code, and I have struggled with this a lot during the 20+ years we’ve been married (my H himself became more American in his value system due to spending a lot of his formative years here).

My wife is from the ex-USSR as well, so I know exactly what you mean. We have very good friends who are also from the ex-USSR, whose elderly parents are here as well. My wife’s parents, though, immigrated to Israel, and that made a big difference.

[aside]
Immigrants to Israel from the ex-USSR (and other countries of the ex-Soviet Bloc) live in an internal conflict between “the government is the enemy” which is far stronger among Jews from these places (because it was true in many ways) with the fact that the government is mostly Jewish and was voted in by mostly Jews. A common result was embracing right-wing mentality.
[/aside]

[twoinanddone]

@garland

I think it’s over-exaggerating to say you could waltz into Harvard with a 3.5. In 1976 I was turned down by Middlebury with a 1490 SAT and 5/1000 in my class.

I didn’t say waltz in, I said you CAN (could) get in. My sister got into Middlebury in 1973 and she was about 7th in her class, with not a perfect SAT score (I’d guess somewhere in the 1400s). Two classmates who were higher than her (although I don’t think #1) went to Harvard and MIT. This was from a high school with no APs, a few ‘honors’ classes (Writer’s Workshop rather than English 3), taking languages as independent study. because there weren’t enough periods in the day to take them during the school day, etc. No weighting of grades, the GPA was the GPA. Good, solid education but nothing flashy. They didn’t even give the SAT at our high school because it wasn’t needed for U of Wisconsin system, so they had to travel to another city to take it. In my class, 1976, I think 5 kids went to OOS colleges, and 3 of those were to Minnesota schools with reciprocity.

I still think it was possible to get into highly ranked schools in the 1970s with less than perfect grades and that it is almost impossible to do so today without a hook.

[mathmom]

It may also have depended on whether you were going to a prep school or a public school. At my prep school an A- average and 700+ SAT scores were good enough for most of the Ivies. A friend of mine who spoke French at home, had a 650 verbal score and got into Yale off the waitlist. In the end our class of about 80 had 6 go to Harvard, 4 to Yale, 2 to Princeton, several to Brown and I don’t know about the other top schools. We didn’t rank students, but obviously we couldn’t have all been in the top 10%. I don’t think anyone had any awards outside the school. It was a different world.