<p>I think if anyone “turns her in,” she’ll just deny it and say she was “showing off.” SAT won’t be able to reveal the results of the other boy’s test, so they might have to “let it go” anyway, since she wasn’t caught red-handed.</p>
<p>Besides…the whole story may be a lie…her score may not have gone up. She may just be claiming it did.</p>
<p>**"First of all, I find it highly unlikely that this girl is telling the truth about cheating. #1, they usually organize you by last name, so it’s impossible to “deliberately sit next to a smart boy.” #2, they usually don’t sit people near others with the same test (to cut down on cheating). I increased my math score from 560->720. Fair and square. It’s possible the girl is just lying to cause drama/create a story.</p>
<p>And say she cheated. How is this your D’s business, your business, anyone’s business, really? Who cares what school she gets into or what she does with her life? We are individuals and we make individual choices. Cheating will catch up to her one day - maybe. But maybe not. Who cares? Worry about your own life and your own choices, eh?"**</p>
<p>After reading the entire thread, I agree 100% with “umcp11” above. #1 she probably didn’t cheat (just don’t think it’s as easy to do as the post makes it sound) and #2 on the very slim chance that she did cheat…karma is a b*t#h - in the end, she really WON’T benefit from it and finally #3 - I always think it’s good advice to “worry about your own life!”</p>
<p>Wow. Do you suppose she claimed to have cheated to avoid the appearance of being math smart/nerdy?</p>
<p>Yeah, I think the girl was lying to appear “bad to the bone”, as the song goes. Unless she whipped out a periscope, I am extremely skeptical that she would be able to see those tiny, penciled in bubbles.</p>
<p>Wow. I absolutely disagree with umcp. I’m amazed at the cavalier attitude displayed in many posts on this thread toward cheating.</p>
<p>This kid may be lying about cheating. The kid may be lying about her score. Maybe she doesn’t want to admit that her score did not go up.</p>
<p>“Wow. I absolutely disagree with umcp. I’m amazed at the cavalier attitude displayed in many posts on this thread toward cheating.”</p>
<p>Cavalier attitude: Showing arrogant or offhand disregard; dismissive</p>
<p>Personally, I don’t think my attitude (or umcp’s) is really “cavalier.” If in fact the person did cheat (which I highly doubt), I really do believe “what goes around comes around.” Even if someone appears to prosper from his/her cheating, in the end, I don’t believe that to be true. I would never cheat, I think I taught my kids to never cheat - and that’s really all I can take responsibility for. Anyone who either would cheat and then brag about it, or NOT cheat and then lie and brag about it, has much bigger issues as far as I’m concerned. </p>
<p>I’m just curious: what’s really to be gained by either letting this bother you or by somehow reporting the person? Is it just personal satisfaction?</p>
<p>Is it really possible to cheat on an SAT–meaning aren’t all the formats varied that the likely hood of the girl getting the same for as the kid next to her pretty remote?</p>
<p>Could the cheater be dumb enough to not know the forms are different?
Could she be lying about her score?
Could she have been using a tutor or test prep …? The SAT doesn’t have very high math right? Just Alg Geo Trig not calc --or am I incorrect on its content?</p>
<p>Reporting the cheating is hard because its not been witnessed and perhaps the cheater is lying about her scores or her behavior.
…and reporting it would have to been done at the site by a witness </p>
<p>So Sorry this girl put your student in this difficult position.</p>
<p>I vividly remember being told where to sit. I can’t imagine how one would be able to choose a bright kid to sit themselves next to.</p>
<p>Proving cheating after the fact is nearly impossible. Good luck and, if cheating was indeed the case, I hope it’s properly sorted out.</p>
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<p>Yes, especially since SAT can’t really reveal the other kid’s results. The girl will likely say that she was making up the story. No one will have proof of where the other kid was sitting.</p>
<p>Frankly, I think this girl is just an attention-seeking hound. There probably is a lot of exciting talk about college prospects at school, so she decided to create this story to create some excitement for herself.</p>
<p>There are some misconceptions here. First, the tests of person sitting next to you may be different but it is not a given. The tests are basically the same except some sections especially the experimental one which do not count in the scoring can be different or the sections can be in different order. The sections that count for scoring are always the same in totality of content. Next, not every test center and proctors behave the same way. Just like people in this thread, there are wide range of different attitude and strictness in the way proctors administer the test. Some require assigned seat but some do not. Some carefully scan the room for cheaters, some just sit there with newspaper blocking their view from the test takers. In a right condition, it will be fairly simple to cheat, in another, it is nearly impossible to.</p>
<p>Some people are incensed by how privileged or connected kids can game the system and get in good schools or achieve many other things in their lives by means of money and connection, some people accept it as part of life and turn blind eye to it. It keeps on happening and it seems we can’t do much about it, so let’s focus our attention to other things that we have control over. Does it make it right, probably not, but many including me do it.</p>
<p>All I know is that my nephew’s SAT scores were delayed a few years back because one person in the classroom that morning was suspected of cheating. When that happens, the College Board takes a close look at everyone and the testing circumstances. He had to wait weeks to get his scores. Maybe his situation is an outlier.</p>
<p>First, my understanding is similar to hidingout. That is, if the CB people suspect (unreported) cheating (typically based on a significant improvement in a score) they delay the reporting of the score to the suspected student or students. They then look at the answers of students next to the suspected student and compare to look for a pattern of identical wrong answers. Where they take it from there, I don’t know, although I believe that they simply give the student an option to take another test for free. Given that this student actually received her “scores” at the same time as the rest, I would assume that CB did not have a problem.</p>
<p>Personally, I never associated cheating with wealth or privilege or that cheating was somehow “gaming the system”. And it continues to amaze me how many people would not bother to report cheating which they witnessed.</p>
<p>S2’s math went up 210 points – 550 to 760. OTOH, this was the increase between the 9th grade PSAT and junior year SAT. He is a solid B+ math student, took AB Calc last year and AP Stat this year (which goes to show the difficulty of the school, but that’s another story). </p>
<p>An interesting comparison would be to see if this student’s SAT-II Math scores, if any.</p>
<p>The cheater and the boy who helped her have last names next to each other in the alphabet. The cheater claims that he was a willing participant in the scheme (didn’t care what she did and says that since his dad is an attorney he won’t get in trouble. Everyone knows the school is deathly afraid of lawsuits.) I thought that proctors were required to keep a record of the seating arrangements. I know they did during AP testing, because when there was a cheating issue once, students were told that the CB had to sort out who might have been involved by taking into consideration proximity and barriers library book shelves.</p>
<p>The girl is a drama queen, so I suppose that theory could be accurate.</p>
<p>By the way, this score increase helps her a lot. She’s a recruited athlete and now can go to a much better school who had told her her SAT’s weren’t high enough. She did not take calculus period, much less AP anything.</p>
<p>I am stuck with being intrigued by the “spectacular vision” idea ( at my age, I don’t count on being able to decipher ANYTHING in print, let alone lining up a column of bubbles from a distance without messing up…how much of a disaster would THAT be?). That and the “spectacular” confidence and insider information it would require for all this to work out. Test prep would be SO much easier.</p>
<p>Another note: I have to go out now, but wanted to post very quickly that last spring there was a cheating situation that I wrote about on CC. I called CB about it and their response was completely unsatisfactory. By reporting it, D’s scores would have been cancelled even though she was completely innocent.</p>
<p>^I suspect that is why cheating by individuals goes unreported by others. </p>
<p>I’ve proctored AP and IB tests at our local high school. AP = no seating chart. IB required a seating chart. I don’t believe that any SAT test that my kids took required a seating chart.</p>
<p>There is a college athlete in the news recently–the claim is that he got someone else to take his SATs for him. It made me think–how do you prove that YOU took the SAT yourself if you went to a big testing center where you didn’t run into someone you knew? At one point in time, taking the SAT required giving a fingerprint, but now all the proctors do is check a photo ID.</p>
<p>Hat, I guess it was a bad analogy. I didn’t try to say anything about money or privilege. Some people are apathetic with others cheating or getting some unfair advantage, while some others care and want to do something about it. What I want to say was an environment where there are more people and citizens who don’t care will breed more cheating. I don’t know about other people, but I’d rather live in a less corrupt society than the other way around and wish more people do care instead of the other way around.</p>
<p>Princeton’s Honor Code contains the following requirement:</p>
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</p>
<p>Under this so-called “rat clause,” a student would be in violation of the honor code, and therefore subject to sanctions up to and including expulsion, if s/he had credible evidence pointing to cheating by another student—such as, for example, that student’s verbal admission to cheating on a test—and failed to report it. So for those of you who are saying, “It’s nobody’s business but the cheater’s,” consider this: Princeton considers it your business if you’re the bystander who comes upon credible evidence to warrant even a credible suspicion of cheating. And Princeton takes your obligation to report the suspected violation so seriously that YOU could be expelled for keeping your mouth shut.</p>
<p>For the OP: it’s likely this case of cheating, if it is that, will never be found out. If it were, though, and if it came to light that your D knew about it and elected to remain silent, then schools like Princeton would have a serious problem with your daughter’s ethical posture toward cheating. But the bigger issue is not the likelihood of being caught. The issue, bottom line, is that your D has to decide for herself whether the social norm of not “ratting” on an acquaintance is more important than the ethical principle that informs the Princeton honor code, namely that academic integrity, and therefore all of academia, is coarsened and devalued and distorted to everyone’s detriment if cheating is tolerated.</p>