<p>i guess you’re right, this is from the code: </p>
<p>It is never acceptable for a student to do the work of another student-- it is not acceptable for students to ask someone, either paid or unpaid, (1) to write or rewrite an assignment, (2) to allow copying of any portion of a problem set, or (3) to translate any part of a written assignment.
It is acceptable to obtain feedback and suggestions from fellow students in the following ways:
Students may discuss ideas with others, but should rely on the other person only for the clarification of ideas, and not for the entirety of an argument/assignment. .
.
Students may ask another person to read a draft of a paper and give feedback on the logic, grammar, and punctuation. However, the student must actually make the changes.
3</p>
There are currently over 2000 colleges and universities in China. However, the qualities of the schools are very uneven, given the rapid growth in recent years. </p>
<p>The universities in China reopened in the late 1970s, after the culture revolution, when about 300,000 students were admitted a year with an admit rate of about 5%. In 2012, 6.85 million students were admitted to college with an admit rate of 75%.</p>
<p>In fact, in the last couple of years, there have been severe shortages of unskilled and semi-skilled laborers in many regions of China while graduates of non-first-tier colleges are struggling to find white color jobs with good pay.</p>
<p>^
A hotly discussed topic on the Chinese cyberspace last year was the daughter of Xi Jinping, president-designate of China. </p>
<p>She is currently an undergraduate student at Harvard (class 2014?). She attended Hangzhou Foreign Language High School, one of the designated baosong school. In 2009, she was selected for baosong, and eventually enrolled in Zhejiang University, an excellent university with a top 3 (or top 5 depends on the ranking) ranked engineering school. But its humanities and social sciences departments are very weak, and none of its foreign language programs appears in the top 40 of any ranking. She got nowhere near the top universities in China, Peking University or Tsinghua Univ, the latter is her father’s alma mater. </p>
<p>When the news that Xi’s daughter got into Harvard spread, the Chinese cybersphere almost exploded. The general consensus, including information provided by her high school classmates, is that Xi’s daughter was a good student and it is not out of the ordinary for her to get into a foreign language program at Zhejiang University by baosong, a not very competitive program. Her name even appeared on a list of some kind of class rank, being among the top 32 students in her high school.</p>
<p>A very common question asked on the web was how did Xi Jinping have such influence and what did he do to get his daughter into Harvard, an almost revered name in China? He could not or did not dare to pull such a trick in China.</p>
<p>That’s easy. The child of a leader of a country, let alone a world power like China, is going to get into Harvard as long as it looks like they’re not going to fail out.</p>
<p>It’s one way to preserve Harvard’s connections to the powerful, and thereby retain their influence.</p>
<p>Wow! Zhejiang U has really gone down the tubes since '49. In the early 20th century, Zhejiang U had highly esteemed humanities and social sciences according to several Chinese and Western Profs/academics who lived/worked in China during that era…including a great-aunt and great-uncle who started their academic careers as STEM/agriculture profs respectively in the '30s. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>According to HS classmates who are Harvard College alums and friends who TAed courses there, unless Xi Jiping’s D attended an academically weak high school with no tutoring resources(doubtful) and/or she goes out of her way to not turn in any work or antagonize a senior Prof…she’ll usually be let off with a gentlewoman’s C both because Harvard isn’t eager to flunk students out…especially scions of well-connected political families. </p>
<p>Even in the case of one scion of a prominent aristocratic family which retains some political influence in their nation to the present who did antagonize his Profs/adviser that I know of at another Ivy, it was couched as “voluntary withdrawal to pursue other interests” without any mention of being flunked or otherwise kicked out. Nevertheless, most of the international students from that scion’s country knew the real deal as some were close to that family and spread the news both as a cautionary tale and to express outrage at his reprehensibly disrespectful behavior and how it reflected badly on their community at the school.</p>
<p>This is not completely fair. In the 1950’s, China followed Soviet Union’s model and made all universities into specialized independent colleges, such as engineering colleges, medical colleges, or colleges of liberal arts. For example, Peking University lost its medical college and split out its engineering college to Tsinghua and became a college of liberal arts. While Tsinghua sent its natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities divisions to Peking University and turned into an engineering school. In the same manner, Zhejiang University was turned into a pure engineering college and shed all other departments for 40 some years and only in the last decade or so, it started to reestablish its humanities and social sciences divisions as in other major Chinese universities. The situations are similar for many other top schools: Peking U is still weak in engineering and although Tsinghua has probably had best recovery, some of its humanities departments are still not among the very best in the country as they were 60 years ago.</p>
<p>The U.S., with a population less than 1/4 of China’s, has more than twice as many universities & colleges and more than twice as many enrolled students.</p>
<p>It is probably NOT in the self preservation of the Chinese Communist Party leadership to educate the peasant masses…</p>
<p>what do you think? obviously Cassie’s lawyer is a paid seal who is trying to convince everyone that large scale cheating is the norm at the Kennedy school. the hubris is amazing. i agree with you, sickening.</p>
<p>A) How dumb do you have to be not to figure that one out?
B) Given this, why do they still “revere” these places? (Pssst … Harvard’s not a deity.)</p>
<p>This isn’t just a CCP issue. Many countries…including some non-Communist countries in Europe and Asia view university entrance/graduation as only for the top academic performers, not the masses. </p>
<p>Whether it’s France’s policy of allowing some highly prestigious universities to provide open admission, but have harsh weed-out exams each year which cut 50%+ from continuing on to the next year or severely circumscribed admissions as is the case in the ROC(Taiwan) where you still have around a 33% chance of not making it into any university from their national college entrance exam, they don’t have the “everyone must go to college” mentality that’s commonplace here in the US.</p>
<p>Not all of them. Mostly the elite ones overall/in their field and preferably…US grad schools where the facilities, faculty, funding, and culture of innovation in academic research at this level does make the US the envy of the world. </p>
<p>However, reasons for Chinese politicians/wealthy businesspeople sending their kids to US colleges…elite or otherwise has much more to do with avoiding subjecting their kids to the highly competitive gaokao, not wanting their kid to attend a lower-tiered Chinese college after they failed to score high enough for the first tier or two, and the fact soft factors within “holistic admissions” such as family name/connections and wealth are much more effective in positively influencing US private college admissions than they would be in China. </p>
<p>The last was a factor in why most Chinese/East Asian grad students and even some visiting Profs who did their undergrad at a first-tier college in China and came to the US for grad school had such disdain for their undergrad compatriots just a few years ago. </p>
<p>Common refrain was such kids “didn’t make the cut” and were using family connections/wealth to gain prestige “through the backdoor”…a euphemism for corruption.</p>
<p>Sigh, yes, we all know ALL ABOUT how everyone in your world spends time judging and disdaining others based on their choice of college and the route by which they got in said college. Because, of course, NOTHING is more important than how other people “regard” you, and if other people “disdain” you - why, that’s a fate worse than death. I mean, you shouldn’t even attend a high school reunion if people don’t approve of your college! Or if they don’t approve, you need to “tweak” them somehow! Yes, heaven forbid you conceive of a culture in which people do their own thing without worrying about their reputations in the eyes of others.</p>
<p>Invisibleyou – Thanks for link to the Crimson article. It is an example of very poor reporting. It appears that the paper has been advised (perhaps by the paper’s legal counsel) to avoid characterizing Chow’s actions as cheating, so the euphemisms “extensive tutoring” and “editing papers” were used instead. This mischaracterizes the content of the invoices. A better approach with no risk of libel whatsoever would have been simply to quote from the invoices as several of the commenters have done. The article as written is simply poor journalism, I am sad to say. And the lack of any attempt to obtain a comment from the KSG is also disappointing ( even if the schools only comment had been no comment it seems that should have been reported). </p>
<p>I don’t fault Cassie’s lawyer at all. That’s a lawyer’s job – to spin facts in his or her client’s favor. One wonders if he advised his client that her actions constituted a criminal act under Massachusetts law ( if she did in fact write papers for pay to be submitted bu someone else for university credit) thus providing a basis for her taking the Fifth in her deposition. Apparently not, since she apparently testified. </p>
<p>Several commenters to the article stated that Harvard has decided to turn a blind eye to this blatant violation of its academic integrity policies. I sincerely hope that is NOT the case. Whatever benefits the university gets from offering degrees to mid-career international business persons, those benefits could not possibly outweigh the harm to the institution’s prestige and reputation for integrity that allowing blatant cheating would cause. Are we now to view all degrees from the KSG as honorary degrees that are not meant to reflect any academic achievement at Harvard? If so, are other masters degrees similarly suspect? I hope that Harvard understands that these are the sorts of questions that the general public will be asking if they do not address this issue. Or perhaps the university should clarify that in their masters programs for mid career executives it is perfectly acceptable for the executive’s staff to do the work, in the same way that the executive’s staff would write memos or other communications going out under the executive’s name in the business world. If that is the case, they should say so, but in that case one has to ask what the degree and diploma are supposed to signify. </p>
<p>Finally, if Harvard really does intend to look the other way and allow this sort of thing to happen in these sorts of masters programs for financial reasons, I find that a very sad commentary on the state of the world today. If one of the world’s richest institutions cannot afford to live up to its stated ideals of academic integrity, then how can anyone else afford to do so? </p>
<p>I’m still hoping that the naysayers are wrong and that Harvard will take swift action to investigate these issues and take appropriate disciplinary actions against both Chow and Cassie.</p>
<p>It’s not MY world, but the reality in such societies. Where you attended college/grad school and whether one followed the “correct path” does determine whether you’d get hired to topflight government civil service departments or domestic corporations to a much greater extent than here in the US. </p>
<p>In the case of those grad students and visiting Profs, their disdain does matter because most of them will be in a position to hire college graduates in universities, civil service departments, and domestic corporations. </p>
<p>Granted, many of those scions of politicians will become party hacks and politicians…but those aren’t positions which the best topflight grads tend to flock or generate much respect among the Chinese populace considering their highly corrupt reputation and emphasis on yelling correct party-line/political slogans over actual intellect and basic competence. </p>
<p>This mentality is also present in Japan as illustrated by how highly prestigious civil service departments or domestic corporations recruiting for management/executive track candidates tend to only recruit and accept graduates from the top 4-5 Japanese universities…especially UTokyo. </p>
<p>And unlike both Chinas where undergrad graduates from foreign elite universities like Oxbridge/Harvard will be considered to some extent, Japanese civil service/domestic corporations won’t look at them as they overwhelmingly prefer graduates from top Japanese universities.* </p>
<p>This mentality is illustrated by the case of one Japanese man who decided he wanted to go to Bucknell for undergrad to “be different” and experience going to an American college. When he graduated, he found no Japanese company in his chosen industry was willing to hire or even interview him and some bluntly told him that his lack of an elite Japanese undergrad degree was the reason. Even getting an MBA from a top 3 Japanese university wasn’t enough. </p>
<p>However, once he entered UTokyo as a “transfer undergrad student” and graduated, the very same companies were falling all over themselves to recruit him and he ended up with many offers. While he felt the overwhelming obsession over elite Japanese undergrad degrees…especially UTokyo’s was absurd, he ended up having to accommodate himself to it if he wanted to be gainfully employed in his industry in a college-graduate level job.</p>
<ul>
<li>On the other hand, they’d love if if that elite Japanese undergrad degree was paired with an elite foreign grad degree from places like Oxbridge, Harvard, Columbia…especially if the grad degree was gained after working in their civil service department/corporation for a period of time.</li>
</ul>
<p>What about Harvard Kennedy School ‘party boy’, Bo Guagua, who </p>
<p>*was one of 21 students awarded a research grant from the school’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation for the current academic year.</p>
<p>A school spokesman declined to say how many students competed for the grant which is awarded on “the quality of the proposal, the research focus, and travel requirements.”*</p>
<p>Well, so let these societies leave talent on the ground if they don’t have precisely the right set of credentials. They’re only hurting themselves with their own stupidity and shortsightedness. Their overemphasis on just-the-right-credentials is why they won’t run the world, ever. This is why, despite America’s many flaws, I still have faith in America.</p>
<p>One factor is the prevailing perception among topflight Japanese employers in the public/private sectors that all elite Japanese college graduates met the same high standard for being “quick studies” as shown through their national college entrance exam performance needed to gain entry to such colleges and graduating from them. Practically no questions about legacy/developmental admissions, political influences, or other soft admission factors which they perceive may introduce subjective factors which may allow someone who has more money/connections than intellect/sense or otherwise ill-prepared educationally/intellectually to “hit the ground running” from the very start of their employment training. </p>
<p>Another is purely related to perceptions that Japanese who go off to foreign colleges for undergrad or younger lack the continued socialization process during undergrad years they feel is crucial for a graduate to “fit in” and get along in Japanese institutional/corporate culture. </p>
<p>This is especially the case with those who went off to attend US undergrad colleges as the common perception is that such Japanese become “too Americanized” and thus, end up being very out of place and even “disruptive” in an institutional/corporate culture which emphasizes going along to get along and respect for institutional/social hierarchy to a much greater extent than here in the states. While some Japanese corporations have been trying to become more openminded on this front within the last decade, there’s still much inertia and stiff resistance from most of the senior/old guard executives. </p>
<p>Granted, I don’t think the cultural socialization aspect applies to both Chinas and other societies.</p>
<p>This may be blunt but I’d like to think it’s true. Individualism is what that sets the US apart. As long as we don’t shut doors to new talented immigrants, no one would ever catch us. Cheating through the best US colleges wouldn’t help at all.</p>