<p>Yeah, but Yale’s policy is that you can’t apply anywhere else early (except for state schools with rolling admissions or early deadlines with regular notification dates, I believe).</p>
<p>Yes, I am going to disagree with Kant. Just so you know, “Philosopher X said this; therefore it must be true and I should not have to provide any real argumentation in support of it” is not something that flies in any facet of life. </p>
<p>Magnitude is an issue in cheating situations. If one person cheats, it doesn’t affect anyone. If everyone cheats, it affects everyone. You can’t just say that it’s not OK for one person to do something if it’s not OK for everyone to do it. That’s a little piece of “common wisdom” that people just take for granted.</p>
<p>LBloom - seriously, no one is allowed to disagree with Kant?</p>
<p>OF COURSE people can disagree with Kant. The problem there was that the argument was “Quoting a philosopher doesn’t mean the given idea makes an ounce of sense at all,” not “Kant’s idea is wrong because…”</p>
<p>Of course citing a philosopher does not make an idea automatically right. But citing a philosopher doesn’t make an idea wrong, either, which is what was said. Say something constructive.</p>
<p>"You’re seriously going to disagree with Kant? "
^^ LOL. Yes, and it puts me in pretty good company.
See: J. S. Mill.</p>
<p>Read what I just said. I shouldn’t have to repeat myself.</p>
<p>The student was contacted by Yale today, and officially “pulled,” as she put it.</p>
<p>Was she mad at you?</p>
<p>“There are no absolute rules of conduct, either in peace or war. Everything depends on circumstances."</p>
<p>-Trotsky</p>
<p>Universal laws? lol we were just discussing the ambiguity of morality. There are no absolutes in the world.</p>
<p>I don’t think we need to discuss that what the girl did was obviously wrong based on the rules Yale gave. </p>
<p>However, whether or not the OP and kaekae is still debatable, mainly because the arguments that most people are making deal with the situation as if it were black and white, which it definitely isn’t simply because this deals with the relationships among people.</p>
<p>^She doesn’t know it was them obviously. They’re too modest to take the glory.</p>
<p>kaekae, though I do understand the OP and your reasoning for contacting Yale, I just think there were much better ways of handling the situation.</p>
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<p>That’s just horrible. Maybe I’m just naive, but I think this dishonesty is just as bad as your friend’s violation of Yale’s SCEA policy. If you know for sure that what you did was right, (“We didn’t do anything wrong. She did.”) then you should just tell her face to face that it was you who turned her in.</p>
<p>sanguinity: Researchers always wonder how children learn to be passive bystanders in group bullying situations…now i KNOW… .you may not realize it but you are teaching your students exactly this - to become passive bystanders. The bullies in your school will quickly learn just how far they can go without being reported by their peers… can your students call each other names as long as they are not naughty words? What if the names hurt but the children have not been physically hurt? A complicated nuance for young children. The really power hungry middle school girls know exactly how to exploit this type of thinking to gain control of their cliques. By the time your students are in high school they will have ingrained that the code of the group is stronger than the code of the individual and no matter what one of the group doesin order to remain in the group one does not rat – </p>
<p>Cheating does hurt the non-- cheaters. If it weren’t unfair and problematic cultures going back thousands of years would not have bothered creating rules to punish and avenge cheating.</p>
<p>^Nice post, very impassioned, but I just wanted to point out that his quote was from momofthreeboy’s post which quoted a school teacher, I don’t think he is the teacher himself.</p>
<p>“Yale is no longer reconsidering my application; I got pulled. Hmm, oh well.”</p>
<p>That was for the Yale freshman applicants (which, once again, does NOT include kaekae and I).</p>
<p>You’re welcome. </p>
<p><strong>Gavel strikes the sound block</strong></p>
<p>As you move from high school to college to the business world you’ll find that there is always a chain of command. You go “up” the chain of command when you have a grievance. You only jump “chain of command” if you hit a brick wall and there is real harm that could occur that you have knowledge of as is what happens in “whistle blowing” which is an admirable loop hole to jump things up the chain of command and inherently the difference between tattling and telling. My only gripe is that the OP and friend went straight to the top, the college, instead of bringing this to their school administration and handling at that level. That, I think, is a mistake that needs to be pointed out. In the business word there are quite a few (negative) acronyms for people that figure out “work arounds.” It would be interesting to see if the GCs sit these two down and talk to them or not. Fortunately I have to assume that their apps and recommendations are complete and this won’t “bit them in the butt.” Very few are condoning the dishonesty of the girl. Most agree that the poster and pal are indignant and were well within their rights to interject themselves once they had the knowledge. I think some are trying to point out that you killed an ant with a sledgehammer.</p>
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<p>InvisibleMan, is that her FB status? she is incredibly open about this, especially if she is talking to you (who, i presume, are not her friend) about it! anyway, does anyone know if yale would contact the other schools? just out of interest.</p>
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<p>Thank you! That’s exactly why I cited Kant - NOT to “rest my case” or to appeal to authority as a substitute for my own argument (which is a logical fallacy anyway). </p>
<p>I cited Kant to point out that to me, the Categorical Imperative is one way of looking at this situation. </p>
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<p>Then you have misunderstood my post and my intentions. </p>
<p>Where exactly in my post did I say “I quoted Kant therefore I must be right” ??</p>
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<p>That reasoning is bizarre. How exactly do you draw the line between an individual and a mass? Are you saying there is some kind of “tipping point” to cheating? Morality should apply to everyone shoudl it not? That’s what deontologists like Kant was searching for - an ethical system that can be appealed to by all. That’s also what utilitarians like Mill was searching for too. </p>
<p>It seems like a pretty worrying world if ethics should change depending on whether it is an individual or whether it is a more general “everyone”.</p>
<p>@Tres Elefantes, she told me that. While by no means great friends, we have been acquaintances for a long time. We have had a couple discussions regarding this matter, initiated by my query via Facebook. It is for that reason, I suppose, that she updated me on the status of the situation.
In response to the remarks of others, I would rather consider it confrontational and inappropriate to speak to her directly about our actions. Perhaps only a couple of people other than us have connected the dots, and we don’t think it our place to spread the rumor. It would also increase her discomfort. That is, instead of making us look bad, it would probably earn her a certain amount of infamy. Now, one would probably have to be privy to the unconventional mores of our student body to understand this. We attend a small private school, so over here is completely different from other places, in my experience at least.</p>
<p>What she did was wrong, but I do think it is sad she trusted you enough to tell you what she had done and in a certain way, you took advantage of the information she trusted you with. As momofthreeboys pointed out, there were many ways you could have settled this situation without reaching up to the very top of the chain of command. I think she would have learned her lesson better if someone she knew or valued or had admiration for, etc. explained to her the implications of what she had done and why it was wrong. Having someone who means something to you tell you why they feel that what you did is unsettling is more earth-shattering/effective than getting caught without much consequence. Judging by the “hmm, oh well,” it sounds as if she is shrugging the whole thing off with little remorse. She was caught with little consequence, so she might not have actually learned her lesson, which is a very important process in terms of “correcting wrong-doers.” Just because someone caught her does not mean she won’t do something wrong in the same alley as cheating or lying again. Consequences are important. Individuals recognizing that they did something wrong and then learning from their mistakes is important.</p>
<p>She seems pretty open about it, I’m sure most people know what she did. If she didn’t tell that many people, then that certainly implies she might have trusted you since you were a long time acquaintance. If she did tell many people, then there wouldn’t be any issues with “infamy”, would there?</p>
<p>OK I’m technology-impaired and still don’t know how to quote things, but: </p>
<p>“Having someone who means something to you tell you why they feel that what you did is unsettling is more earth-shattering/effective than getting caught without much consequence.” </p>
<p>I would think that getting her app pulled, no matter how little significance it is to her, is a heck of a lot better than her getting away scotch free out of this mess. If it really is of such little consequence to her, then perhaps she would not have been a good fit at Yale anyway. </p>
<p>I can see the dilemma the OP is facing re: acting as if everything is fine towards the cheater. It is horrible to continue acting like the cheater’s friend, but even worse to reveal the OP’s actions and therefore generate open antagonism.</p>