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:eek:Not all adults. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I was on a search committee where one of my colleagues exaggerated her involvement in something I had done. What a dumb*<em>#</em>. However, I do not think most people embellish their credentials. Perhaps I am naive.</p>
<p>I think people live their life in the gray zone, but some things are just not gray, you are or you are not. I agree with northeast mom poor example for your kids. I always say you need to look at yourself in the mirror every day.</p>
<p>If you think people live in the gray, you need to meet my husband.;)</p>
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<p>Nice to know what money value she puts on her integrity…</p>
<p>But what can one do? Send a note to the college? Anonymous notes aren’t taken seriously, so you’d have to disclose who you are. Is it worth losing a friend over?</p>
<p>No, you don’t tell anyone at this point. Absolutely not, that would be really bad. Ruining the poor kid’s education. The solution is to seethe silently, and get it off your chest here.</p>
<p>Now that you know your friend is “ethically challenged,” I’d also be leery to completely trust her, especially when it came to money…</p>
<p>What is being talked about is moral relativism. It’s either the truth or it’s a lie. It doesn’t matter if it’s $2 or $2million. I don’t know how anyone can feel good about getting something undeserved. It’s irrelevant what other people do or think. If you can’t draw the line in the sand for yourself for something this small, when something larger coming down the pike gets you to question your ethics or morals you won’t have a solid footing to take your stand.</p>
<p>I work in corporate HR and remember the day a senior vice president was walked out of his office by security because a routine credential check discovered that he had lied on his resume. Yes, lots of people lie on their resumes. Most of them come to regret it. At most corporations now, you sign a piece of paper during the interview process allowing the company to verify everything on your resume. And you would be surprised by what we discover, and how awful the consequences.</p>
<p>Do you really want to be 50 years old and caught in a lie about something you claim you did 20 years ago? Or to lose out on a fantastic job opportunity because you claimed you graduated magna cum laude when you didn’t? Or claim that you’re a CFA when you only passed level I? Or listed that you were Director of Business Development when you were actually a Business Development Specialist?</p>
<p>Nothing ever gets deleted on the internet. Universities keep pretty good records (they have a lot at stake in protecting their reputations so if you left grad school after one semester, they are happy to tell an employer that no, you do not have an MA even though you were enrolled in a Masters program.)</p>
<p>Yes, many people lie. That doesn’t make it right- and they must expend a lot of psychic energy making sure they don’t get caught. And for gods sake- people who list the languages they speak on their resume but can’t carry on a conversation in that language- you must be living under a rock. My company has operations in countries around the world- there is no language too obscure for us. If you speak “conversational Dutch” you better be prepared to get a phone call from a colleague in our Amsterdam office to ask you how 'bout them Patriots.</p>
<p>My opinion here depends on who initiated the lie.</p>
<p>If it was the parents, be angry at them all you want but don’t tell anyone because you can’t really blame their daughter.
If it was the daughter, be angry at her all you want and be very angry at her parents for allowing and bragging about it, but still don’t tell anyone because if she becomes (or is) a chronic liar it will be found out eventually anyway.</p>
<p>What concerns me here is not just that the girl lied to get the scholarship, but that the college is also affiliated with the religion she lied about in order to get the scholarship in the first place. This is a fairly big whopper. If she plans to attend this college, she may find herself in the very awkward position of explaining time and time again the exact nature of her affiliation with this particular religion. It may also follow her after she graduates - with alumni groups and other college connections. All for $1,000? What a burden. It’s so true that many lies end up biting the liar in the butt. I would advise my friend to not accept the scholarship or attend the university. She does still have the time to come clean and bow out - the scholarship can then go to a more deserving student.</p>
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This isn’t true at all in my experience. I don’t know where you get this from.</p>
<p>Hopefully if nothing else, this lie will be discovered and she’ll be expelled from the college - perhaps after having already spent a lot of money to go there. She deserves to either have her admission offer withdrawn or be expelled for blatantly lying like this.</p>
<p>At a religious school, being of the named religion might be MORE important than grades (at a certain level), or SAT scores or whatever. It therefore might be more egregious than cheating on one’s SATs or fabricating one’s grades or forging a letter of recommendation.</p>
<p>Actually, this story doesn’t make any sense to me. Every religious college or university that I’ve been involved with that is STILL religious (as opposed to “was religious when it was founded 150 years ago”) requires a letter from your pastor as part of the application process. Are you saying that they also fabricated that part of the application? If that’s the case, you should tell someone because that would actually be forgery. I’ve never heard a religious college giving scholarship money based on religion that wouldn’t ask for a letter from a pastor. </p>
<p>It’s also pretty common for one of the essays to be something like: give your testimony about your conversion and how you came to know God – or something like that. This would be extremely difficult to “make up” because unless you had spent time in that community, you wouldn’t actually know the lingo – In other words, whether you should talk about hearing a still, small voice vs. “being convicted in my sin” – nor would you be able to make the associated arguments about what your faith is now driving you to do in the world (presumably if you were a Mennonite it would mean that you were now deeply committed to world peace whereas if you were a Baptist you might now be committed to family values.)</p>
<p>I’ve been on hiring committees at Christian colleges and believe me, it’s very easy to tell who just wants the job and who is actually a Christian. It would be very hard to “fake” – maybe impossible.</p>
<p>My very limited experience is a little different. Earlham College provides a $3,000 scholarship to Quakers, and applicants simply need to name their Yearly Meeting. no essay, no pastor’s letter (we don’t have pastors). In Quaker circles, your word is your bond.</p>
<p>What a relief to see others also believe in pure honesty. If you star twisting it, you end up bending it. My son´s teacher, who has known him for 8 years now, once told me: “He just can´t lie, it´s not in his genes”. So proud of him.</p>
<p>I agree - not all adults lie on resumes.</p>
<p>This story reminds me of a person I went to grad school with. S/he was originally at a top school with a big scholarship because the application on ethnic group was checked off “Aleut.” When the school figured out s/he was not an Aleut, s/he lied and said it was a mistake. The money was given back and a transfer to my school ensued. No scholarship money was involved.</p>
<p>So she goes to a college that you would not go to - so what? Who cares if she goes to a college where nobody knows her or her religious convictions. Maybe she can test the other students such that they will grew stronger in their faith.</p>
<p>^ I think as a community, a society, we actually DO care and are concerned about stories of cheaters, liars and crooks. The vast majority of things we hear about and read about have no direct impact on us…that doesn’t mean we don’t feel moral indignation. And rightfully so. </p>
<p>This is not a gray area at all. The outcome actually takes away money from someone more deserving. </p>
<p>As to the earlier comment about fabricating a resume. No doubt someone does it but I’ve never heard nor seen such a case (and I’ve read a LOT of resumes in my decades of work). Not to mention, even if it were true that would not make THIS unethical act any less so.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine lying about some quality to get a scholarship or admission. I have heard of some people converting to a religion … in the cases I heard it was Catholicism … to get admitted more easily to highly rated Catholic schools, but they actually had to make the effort to attend services etc. People’s religions are complicated though, and it’s up to the school to verify information like that if it’s important to them. The amount of money being lied for is not the issue in my view. Just wrong unless there is some plausible connection to the religion – i.e., attended as a child, planning to convert, etc.</p>