Regarding Forgery

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hello members of College Confidential.</p>

<p>Recently a friend of my son came to me with a problem regarding forging transcripts.
His girlfriend's parents is really strict, the kind that takes everything seriously, especially when it comes to academics. Recently his girlfriend acquired some less than agreeable grades in her college, and my son's friend made a copy of the real transcript and changed the gpa and grades. This was the only copy made and only used to fool her parents.
Problem is their lie was discovered by the girlfriend's parents, and now they are considering taking legal action against my son's friend. Questions are:</p>

<p>a) Is it a severe offense to forge a transcript solely for the purpose of deceiving parents? and if it is, what kind of punishment is he looking at?</p>

<p>b) would him confessing to the college be a better alternative than to be charged?</p>

<p>Thank You</p>

2

<p>he wasn’t representing her grades in any official capacity, and his actions weren’t likely to bring any dangerous consequences, so the only course of action I can imagine for them is to be very angry.</p>

3

<p>Who gave the misrepresented grades to the parents - the friend or the girl? It was almost certainly the girl. The parents s/b angry with the girl if they’re angry with anyone since he couldn’t have done this without her and likely was just a tool used by her to do so. But really, they should look inwards since the girl’s in college - why are they asking for a transcript? That’s something for employers and grad school applications.</p>

<p>This is fairly ridiculous. Perhaps the parents reap what they sow.</p>

4

<p>Maybe the parents feel that if they’re paying the freight, they have a right to inspect the goods?</p>

<p>I wouldn’t, but many would.</p>

5

<p>^^ I agree but a lot of parents would do that by simply asking the student how they’re doing and the student would simply truthfully tell them hence the “reap what they sow” statement. Once it’s at the point where the parent insists on reading an actual written transcript and the student feels compelled to change it, something’s already lost.</p>

6

<p>It’s a free country. They can sue.</p>

<p>They’ll lose.</p>

7

<p>Yes, they are very strict, I had a chance of meeting them a couple of times and they take this stuff very seriously. They order a transcript every semester, the girl did fine up until this semester.
@ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad : Yes the girl gave the misrepresented grades to her parents.</p>

<p>So in summary they can sue, but the boy won’t be punished with anything serious?</p>

8

<p>(I think they should send her to bed without any dinner, and be done with it.)</p>

9

<p>they can only sue if they have legal grounds to do so. it does not appear as if they do</p>

10

<p>They can’t even sue. They can file but it will get dismissed. You to show financial loss.</p>

<p>Even if they told the police they’d get laughed out of the station…</p>

11

<p>“pain and suffering”. LOL!</p>

12

<p>Thank everybody</p>

13

<p>Now don’t “help” your girlfriend this way again!</p>

14

<p>

</p>

<p>Wouldn’t defending against even a frivolous lawsuit be an expensive hassle for the student who has no money to do so?</p>

15

<p>What kind of lawsuit are they thinking of bringing? If it’s a criminal one, they’d need to get some prosecutor to agree to bring it; can’t think of any who would. If it’s a civil one, they’d have to find someone who would take the case or bring it themselves on some theory or another.</p>

<p>Would definitely have the BF re-think how much he wants to become any part of this family or relationship with this woman. A lawsuit seems WAY over the top for the circumstances here.</p>

16

<p>While the parent may not be able to sue in the courts, there is nothing stopping her from reporting the incident to the college. </p>

<p>If there is a honor code it can be grounds for having one or both of them dismissed.</p>

17

<p>That would be troublesome. So if the parents do decide to report it to the school, would the college be likely to take legal action?</p>

18

<p>It is not so much that the college will take legal action, but they would be within their right to take disciplinary action against one or both of the students up to and including dismissal from the college.</p>

19

<p>Ouch…thanks for your answer sybbie, I will definitely look at the code of the college</p>

20

<p>Even if there is no honor code, forging documents is frowned upon and would be something that the school would not take lightly. At the end of the day your Son’s friend did the wrong thing and there may be consequences for it.</p>