<p>I applaud the OP.</p>
<p>In case either of you wanted clarification for the severity of her anger:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.leatherart.nl/images/viking.jpg[/url]”>http://www.leatherart.nl/images/viking.jpg</a></p>
![http://www.leatherart.nl/images/viking.jpg[/url]](http://www.leatherart.nl/images/viking.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>Expect to see that figure banging on your door sometime soon</p>
<p>The OP did the right thing. The logic in some of these posts is absurd.</p>
<p>Personally, I wouldn’t tattle. I just wouldn’t see it as my problem. But I can completely accept that some people would. She broke the rules, she knew she would have to abide by the consequences if she was caught. The consequences aren’t too “extreme”–she had to have known what she was getting into when she made the decision to lie when she signed the agreement.</p>
<p>There are some things, like rejection, that are rather easy to speculate. The others, perhaps not so much.</p>
<p>When it comes to ulterior motives, it comes down to this; that in order to have committed this action that could have put so much at stake, there must be more than “she cheats” or some vague ideas of “integrity” and “fairness”. To potentially jeopardize people’s futures and the future of your school’s relationship with Yale would, unless you have a rather different view of the world than the norm, require a great deal of antagonism towards that person that I can’t see coming from someone cheating. Cheating is certainly unfair in that it gives an advantage, and but it does not hurt people (beyond the cheater, as common ideas go). What you have done can and will (rejection is coming I bet) cause hurt.</p>
<p>^digression here, but i disagree with you about the “cheating hurts no one but the cheater” mentality. take an extreme example: for a lab in one of my science classes, a girl took her lab partner’s final lab report off the turn-in pile and copied her partner’s conclusions word for word without the partner’s knowledge. result? both were accused of plagiarism. was it sorted out? yes, but it caused undue stress for the non-cheater.</p>
<p>on tests, also, especially curved tests, i feel that cheating is sometimes detrimental to the non-cheaters. often, the cheaters are not the kids who are going to be the curvebreakers (usually they are far from it), but it has happened in classes of mine before.</p>
<p>Yeah I didn’t think about curved tests or plagiarism, though the latter is a more dual role oriented sort of thing. It obviously poses problems with curved tests.</p>
<p>^definitely on the plagiarism. rarely is it a one-way street. certainly an extreme example! still, it did happen and it did cause stress.</p>
<p>To make the digression more relevant, this type of cheating DEFINITELY hurts more people than just the cheater. Assuming she was not caught and was lucky enough to get in, she is taking the spot of another applicant who followed Yale’s policies. Yale has applicants sign the agreement, and the majority abide by it. It’s fair. The people trying to game the system like this girl hurt the chances of all the other applicants following the rules.</p>
<p>Tres Elefantes, it’s funny because pretty much that exact situation happened to me in A.P. Biology last year–a girl copied my conclusion in a lab report, which was petty because it was mainly for my calculations using Equation Editor for neatness. Of course, my reaction was the complete opposite. Undue stress? I understand that people react differently, but becauseI was completely innocent, there was no need for me, the non-cheater to worry at all.
I only sympathize with the girl who copied because she did not gain anything by taking that risk except the potential of a good grade. Good grade? Grades don’t matter, skills matter. Learning materials with an actual passion for learning is what actually matters in the long run. Recieving another A for the sake of getting an A was her wrong attitude and I just wish her better judgement in the future. I have faith that cheaters never win in the grand scheme of things.</p>
<p>I also want to add that at this point, I’m not sure whether I support the OP or not. It was technically tattling, but for the sake of fairness. And yet judging by previous posting in this thread, there seems to be a lot of spite towards the cheater for past grievances, so perhaps the OP’s motives are not so purely based on fairness after all but also malice? Not tasteful. This isn’t black and white.</p>
<p>I applaud the OP and his friend. They did the right thing by blowing the whistle on the cheater mentioned.</p>
<p>I think that the cheater jeopardized her OWN chances by not abiding the rules - and essentially committing fraud (signing something that was not true). </p>
<p>Its not fair to shift the blame to the OP or the whistleblowers - the original action of cheating in itself is what creates the potential “risk to future” that some posters declaim, had she not cheated, such a possibility would not exist.</p>
<p>Cheating undermines the whole social infrastructure, and makes non-cheaters feel like dupes. People who know that cheating is going on and accept it are complicit in the corruption. There’s no way around that. The world is a better place if cheaters get caught from time to time. The world is a better place if those who cheat have to hide it rather than brag about it.</p>
<p>If the simple factual premise of the OP is true – and that can be easily confirmed – then the student in this situation cheated, pure and simple. If the school let her do it, then the school cheated. No one is suggesting that a 17-year-old get the death penalty, or the academic death penalty, for blatantly violating the SCEA rules, and no one is suggesting that a bill of attainder be placed on the next ten classes at her school. But she, and anyone who knew what she was doing and condoned it, including her parents and school personnel, deserve to have a hard time over this.</p>
<p>Now, if she were my friend, would I rat her out? Probably not. But that would be participating in the corruption to some extent. I would probably argue with her. I know I would think a lot less of her. I would remember that she was without honor, and that she had cost me some of my own honor.</p>
<p>The OP, however, is clearly not her friend. I’m not sure whom she expects to be her friend.</p>
<p>sanguinity wrote "Cheating is certainly unfair in that it gives an advantage, and but it does not hurt people (beyond the cheater, as common ideas go). "</p>
<p>I would retort with this: if an atomosphere that cheating is tolerated and goes unpunished, what is to stop everyone from cheating? </p>
<p>Think of the corruption, greed and graft of places of Nigeria, Indonesia, Afghanistan — compared to the government of Singapore.</p>
<p>In the ultra competitive nature of Yale admissions, this may very well be the millstone that sinks the cheater’s chances. I have no sypathetic bone in my body for her.</p>
<p>The applicant’s actions harmed everyone in the applicant pool who followed the rules. If she were to be admitted ahead of someone else who showed the character and honesty to follow Yale’s requirements, that would be wrong. Just because you might disagree with the unfairness of the college application process doesn’t mean that you can cheat the process and think that is okay.</p>
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<p>Exactly. This very much reminds me of Immanuel Kant’s Categorical Imperative - </p>
<p>“Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”</p>
<p>That’s why cheating, even by one person has much broader repercussions beyond that one person getting away with it or not. Knowingly allowing an act of cheating to occur undermines the whole system and other applicant’s faith in that system.</p>
<p>I think giraffe made a point about this that was pretty good:</p>
<p>“What if she had remained silent, as she should have given her actions? She wouldn’t have been caught but for the smallest of chance. She is in trouble not for what she did in terms of violating SCEA, but for her stupidity”</p>
<p>i think this is pretty true. If she did keep her lid shut, this wouldn’t be happening. None of us would be aware of this at all. It is really her stupidity in getting in trouble. </p>
<p>There are plenty of other cheaters out there. Whether or not this girl was caught doesn’t change anything, as said before. This doesn’t make any lasting impressions in admissions except for the few people whose roles were magnified.</p>
<p>It really isn’t about whether cheating is tolerated, because all around, business continues as usual. For most people, it is that small chance of getting caught that is the deterrence. Getting caught is really a very, very small chance if you don’t act like this girl and tell the world. But most people still don’t take the chance because of that fear of that small chance. An occurrence like this has no effect of deterring cheaters simply because they know that they should just keep their mouth shut. It has always been a separate fear of knowing that one could face severe consequences for cheating that primarily deters people from dishonest.</p>
<p>This does not justify the girl’s cheating, but rather, is here to weigh the girl’s actions versus the OP’s.</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily sympathize with this girl. I am just irked by the actions and the following justifications/denials of the OP, and the attempts by many to make this such a black and white issue.</p>
<p>I still think people should look at momofthreeboy’s post. I think that it is the best way of looking at this situation. </p>
<p>“We have a community meeting each day. I stress that the most important rule in my class is to be kind. We discuss that tattling isn’t a kind way to act because tattling is mostly to get someone in trouble. I also tell my students that I really want to know if someone is hurting them physically, saying really naughty words, or doing something dangerous. Telling those things isn’t to be unkind nor is it tattling. It really works. When someone tattles during the first few weeks of school, I ask if telling is to be mean to someone or if I really need to know.”</p>
<p>–from a early gradeschool teacher workbook about how to deal with tattling. Who was in danger or harmed? I’m not saying the girl wasn’t wrong, but by the same token tattling isn’t always right. Who learned from this? What was gained by your actions? What will improve in your school because of this? How were thousands and thousands of lives in harm and now not in harm as you claim? How is your school adminstration reacting to your actions? Did you inform them first of the situation before elevating it to the college? I’m not going to pass judgement on whether or not you did right or wrong, simply asking if you thought this through regarding whether the output - the action plan you took was tattling or telling.</p>
<p>Somehow I think that if little Suzie were cheating on the 1st grade teacher’s spelling test, the teacher would want to know.</p>
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<p>Quoting a philosopher doesn’t mean the given idea makes an ounce of sense at all. </p>
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<p>Somehow I think that has nothing to do with anything.</p>
<p>You’re seriously going to disagree with Kant? The categorical imperative applies perfectly here. If it was morally correct to let the cheater get by with no consequences, then everybody applying to Yale should be able to follow the same course of action. That position is indefensible.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Yale’s SCEA policy, but I do know that students applying to some early programs are allowed to apply to certain other early programs if they agree to withdraw those applications as soon as they hear from their first school. I’m not sure how it works, but a girl at my children’s school applied early to Columbia (a ED school) and was allowed to apply to U Chicago’s early program. She didn’t end up completing the app, and she got into Columbia, but our school counselors are rigorous about these rules and her mom said she was given the okay. She did say that U Chicago was one of the few schools for which this was allowed.</p>