<p>No, I get you northeastmom. I am adamantly opposed to lying- people who lie disgust me (except those nice lies you tell your kids or whoever to protect them or make them feel better…). But when it comes to kids getting into trouble- it’s the liars that get away with it and the honest ones that get crucified. I see students who get in trouble, get their parents and maybe even lawyers involved, concoct some strategic verbal gymnastics to defend themselves, use loopholes and manipulate the system… and come out of it with not a mark on their record. Other kids 'fess up, admit they did wrong, take responsibililty, and get shafted. </p>
<p>A kid at our hs got in trouble for collaborating on an assignment. It was well known by admins that there were probably a couple dozen other students involved in the collaboration (basically the entire class was online sharing information), but he was the only one suspended, and this has really come to haunt him now that he’s trying to get into college. They did not want to pursue the others- they wanted to shake up the school, make him into an example, and be done with it. None of the other students, all who signed the honor code swearing they neither gave nor received information, came forward, and this is a religious-based school with a giant honor code display with thousands of student signatures and photos of fresh faced students signing the code plastered all over the place. Some of those students have been accepted into the very schools he was not, probably because of his disciplinary record. That’s the kind of stuff that really bugs me- the dishonest get rewarded, the honest get punished.</p>
<p>BedHead, I did mean to say that lying about it is definitely dishonest. I do make the distinction between morality and what is law. I agree with you, that my wording was unclear.</p>
<p>LOL, as I was posting, my oldest called to tell me he got a ticket last night because one of his headlights burned out. I’d hate to think that people think he’s immoral or dishonest because of this! Pepboys, here we come.</p>
<p>Sorry about that Doubleday, I am surprised that he did not get pulled over, and wasn’t just first warned to get it fixed.
I have been pulled over twice for brake lights and was just warned to have them fixed.</p>
<p>He was told if he gets it fixed, then brings in proof within a certain number of days, the fine will be reduced. The cops don’t fool around, I guess. This is “Don’t taze me bro!” country. :eek:</p>
<p>I guess I look at it like this- people make mistakes. Especially kids. I always told mine not to lie about their foibles, and even if they disappoint me I’ll always love them and support them. I think they’re honest people now, although I know that honesty is not always going to be in their best interest, personally.</p>
<p>“Folks with no vices, have very few virtues.” (Abe Lincoln)</p>
<p>I agree that morally drinking is less frowned upon than cheating, but in the larger scheme, drinking has a far more profound affect on more people. The chances of a person taking someone else’s spot in college because they cheated is very slim as colleges not only over accept applicants, but that’s what other factors such as ECs, etc are in place for. A kid who gets too drunk and passes out, causing you to lose your weekend house (happened to me), or a kid you almost get arrested for taking him home (happened to me), or a kid who pukes all in your shower (and then she doesn’t even clean it), or a kid who gets drunk and flipped there car (again, personal experience seen it) is far more risky than a cheater, so in the larger scheme of things, I feel this is far less appropriate behavior simply for the fact that it risks many peoples lives if you can’t handle your liquor. This is why I never get tanked, after the first two times I learned my lesson well, maybe a buzz but even then I refuse to drive or anything else that could injure someone else over my choices.</p>
<p>for the people who said to help that kid out, he can’t be helped. Tried stabbing me with a pencil, and not like jokingly stab, literally lunge at me, I nearly broke his nose after that so now I let people do whatever without trying to help him out even though now he tries to talk to me as a friend. As long as he doesn’t go crazy before I leave, as selfish as it sounds, I’m alright.</p>
<p>Considering the number of alcohol and other drug-related incidents (alcohol poisioning, drunk driving and date rape, to name a few) on campus, posters/parents/administrators should not dismiss alcohol-related school infractions as merely mischievous.</p>
<p>Wow, Hyakku, it sounds like you cavort with a lot of drunks. What’s up with that? ; ) Seriously, sorry to hear about your trials.</p>
<p>Grazing an answer off a neighbor on a test might have some broad equivalence to having a beer, I don’t know. But the things that you talked about are really excessively different. Someone who almost gets you arrested is equated with a mildy roving eye during test time in your schema, and those are different things for all sorts of reasons.</p>
<p>The bigger point is that schools which rely on the soundness of tests and the awarding of merit based on academic performance must put an extremely high premium on your behavior within a school context, more than they would have to do regarding overall behavior in other arenas, IMO. </p>
<p>Now, to make a point, if you were a football player in HS, would you expect if you made a couple of illegal tackles every game that this kind of thing would be put on your transcripts – or that the parents of the involved kids would take each other to court? No. You’d rely on the refs to mete out the proper penalties and call it a day (or most would).</p>
<p>I think that by and large most non-academic performance issues should be weighed by different authorities, and not brought into the realm of concern of either schools or the colleges to which students apply. If things cross certain lines, though, I agree schools should have it within their rights to find out. Just as a student asserts positively in an application that he/she has a character (as well as intellect) worthy of admission, the colleges to which this students is applying ought to have some right to know about egregious missteps that would tell another story about a candidates character.</p>
<p>The other thing is you blithely assert that no one gets into particular schools because of cheating. Maybe not for minor infractions, perhaps not. But too many minor infractions erodes everyone’s faith in the system.</p>
<p>And in the worst cases, people actually DO end up using egregious cheating in the service of getting into colleges and taking others’ spots, as in the following case ripped from this week’s headlines in the SF Bay Area:</p>
<p>Heck, one of these cheaters got into Berkeley apparently (a top school). Another into UCLA, etc. </p>
<p>What do you think the universities that granted these folks degrees are going to do? That’s right: I’d bet $1000 they’ll revoke the degrees. Why? 'Cause a university can’t abide the admissions and overall academic performance standards be cast into doubt by such episodes. Schools ought to place a mammoth premium, IMO, on academic integrity.</p>
<p>And you shouldn’t be expecting the academic system to enforce your getting your weekend house back or shaming someone from cleaning up the barf in your shower. Those things should be for people, parents, or maybe even courts, to decide. And I say this all in stark recognition of the fact that drinking is far more damaging to the world at large than academic cheating.</p>
<p>The problem is that you are treating all drinking as the same. There are certainly kids who don’t drive under the influence and who do not engage in date rape, and for that matter who have the sense to drink responsibly, but still wind up on the wrong side of the law. Is what they did really so bad? Nobody else was harmed, and the had the forsight to engage in responsible behavior when involving alcohol.</p>
<p>^lol, did you consider what you just said? If you’re going to apply to a top university and you KNOW the level of seriousness of a crime you have committed, well…there is no if, you just won’t do it.</p>
<p>Colleges would be hypocritical keeping out kids with drinking infractions when they turn a blind eye to these activities once the kids are there. Cheating on an exam or paper can lead to far more serious consequences at college. As someone clarified, we are not discussing legal issues here. And I don’t believe we are discussing morality either. We are talking about behavior that upsets colleges. Academic integrity is of utmost importance to colleges. </p>
<p>As to screening kids out who are likely to have the kind of breakdown that the Virginia Tech student did, you would need to look at psychological profiles, and more behavior records than just asking about suspensions and arrests. I have been reading that more colleges are becoming wary about keeping students who are showing aberrant behavior or need psychological attention. However, many of these disorder do not come to a point where they evolve into dangerous behaviors until kids go away to college. Many kids seek counseling of sorts at college. That is when the mood disorders and psychological as well as psychiatric conditions come to surface. We get into profiling when we try to keep any kids with the potential to have these problems.</p>
[QUOTE]
Wow, Hyakku, it sounds like you cavort with a lot of drunks. What’s up with that? ; ) Seriously, sorry to hear about your trials.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
</p>
<p>I dont blame anyone or expect compensation, they are friends I just laugh at it and keep moving. What I mean is that I could rattle of DOZENS of stories like this, and I’m just one kid, the fact of the matter truly is that American culture does not prepare teenagers to learn how to control their drinking until early 20s. Obviously this isn’t the case all the time, but the freedom plus ease of getting alcohol and older high school / beginning of college is a huge allure to so many kids, and in fact, I know of 13 year olds getting drunk nowadays. I personally just feel that the student be evaluated only if tbere is something specifically pointed out that would warrant a search into this kids background.</p>
<p>People here are claiming that schools would rather have dangerous, substance-abusing students than students that would cheat.</p>
<p>Personally, I see those students whom are cheating as the group who is going to be more successful in life anyways. They obviously care about succeeding.</p>
<p>And for all of you who are labeling lieing as immoral, take a philosophy class, or even an intro psychology class. If you’ve ever heard of the stages of moral development, you would know that the morality of lieing is in the eyes, or rather the stage of moral development, of the person who is labeling it. </p>
<p>Personally, I see endangering the lives of others as much more immoral and indictive of bad character than cheating on a test, which in reality harms no one. If you really think about it, all the cheating in the world is not going to get you into a top college. The cheater isn’t going to be taking a spot from anyone unless they also manage to cheat on their standardized testing and lie about all of their ECs. So what if they got caught cheating? If they have high SATs and amazing ECs, I’m pretty sure they were cheating because they didn’t want to fail to meet their already high self-expectations, not so they’d get into your college. They’re not cheating on every test; if they had to do that, it would be apparent in their test scores. To be honest…most of the kids who got good grades but low SAT scores at my school cheated alot…and now they’re at mediocre colleges anyways. </p>
<p>Essentially, cheating is a personal moral judgement, just as much as drinking is. You don’t know the factors leading up to the event, so you don’t have the right to determine the morality of it.</p>
<p>This would be a lot more fun than to have a bunch of grade-grubbers running around completely stone cold sober all the time.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why stop at cheating then? Theft and murder can really move the ball down the field quickly.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think you missed the point of those classes. There are competing concerns that make the determination of the purported immorality of certain kinds of lies less stark than that of others. Still, lying can be called an unequivocal immorality. In practice, people don’t observe that standard of moral behavior though.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There’s a specific counterexample a few posts above.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It stops being simply a personal moral judgement if a school finds out about it. Then it is a stark moral judgement in most cases rendered by people who have the authority to discipline or even expel you. And you can tell the school they should look at the factors leading up to the event all you want; I don’t think they’ll buy that argument.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>From the standpoint of overall society, I can agree with this viewpoint. From the standpoint of a school which acts as a guardian of academic integrity among other things, cheating can and should receive a much higher level of opprobrium. Personally, I think corporal punishment might be in order, unless the person getting punished is into that; then that would be like a reward for him or her. And that certainly wouldn’t be fair.</p>