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Academic Integrity and It's Lack of Place In Society

If I received a dime for every talk I’ve been given about the evils of plagiarism and how sinister the intentions of cheaters are, Bill Gates would be my golfing buddy. Since freshman year of high school (and before), teachers have drilled into our heads that if we cheat, we WILL fail class and never succeed in life. I myself have never cheated and do not intend to, but I have seen the effects of plagiarism and they are far from the gloom and doom my high school instructors foretold. The occasional hiding of the calculus notes inside the battery pack of the TI-83, the borrowing of phrases from Wikipedia to complete the English paper due tomorrow, I’ve seen it all. But I don’t particularly blame the students – yes, they do have a choice to cheat, and they undoubtedly make the wrong decision. But the school system can place so much stress on the student that it feels as if there are no more viable options; we’ve pushed the students so far up a tree they have to cheat to keep from falling.

A recent survey taken by Texas Christian University states that “the most important factor considered in admissions decisions is high school GPA or class rank.” In Texas as well as other states, the students with the highest GPA’s get automatic acceptance into state colleges. Students play the perverse keep-up game: they have to take AP exams to get the weighted course grade (AP courses have a higher credit value on a high school transcript) to keep up with their peers. This “keep-up” game becomes a cause and effect race, where the perceived loser loses all. Often times the students over commit themselves to all of their advanced classes, which leads to a sense of urgency to do well in every course, resulting in late nights studying, and due to lack of sleep the student loses the drive to do anything that wouldn’t benefit their GPA. After all, how would “I take time off to play outside” compare to “I spend every waking hour with my nose in a book” on a college application?

And then there’s the potential cheater’s worst nightmare: the overachiever. The overachiever plays all the cards right, gets an A in every course, and balances being the chess club president and a vegan at the same time. This can frustrate any student looking to be valedictorian to the point of deliberately cheating or plagiarizing. For example, look at user “LostThoughts” on the website “43 Things”.

“I just realized a couple of weeks ago, I need to be valedictorian. I am not doing it to have the honor of going up to give the speech in front of the hundreds of graduating seniors but I am doing it because I am competitive. All my life I have tried so hard to get good grades, to be able to see my name in a certificate, to be able to have people say, “Wow you are really smart”, and I will just give them a smile. But know that I have entered high school, I’ve tired to get the best grades I can and I have. And to my astonishment I am #2 in my sophomore class, and that just made me so mad! The #1 person was an idiotic football player who would mess around in class, copy everyone homework, cheat in test, and just be a complete nuisance. What even made me madder is that everyone was encouraging him in class, right in my face. Telling him, “Oh definitely you are going to be #1”. Other things that even made me more frustrated is that in class we were talking about having this honor then the teacher just mentions his name and start naming everyone in Top Ten and you know who did they forgot? ME! That just broke my heart because they forgot my name. I WAS #2! NEXT TO #1! HOW HARD IS IT TO REMEMBER EVERYONE BELOW ME AND NOT ME AND SAY THAT’S ALL THE PEOPLE WHO WILL HAVE A CHANCE TO BE VALEDICTORIAN! I have spent this year to get my GPA high enough only to see me get rejected and not be remembered?” – June 20, 2007

Five days later (in size 20 font and bold print):

“Bah just got my grades today an im so mad!I got 3 A’s and 3 B’s bah im so mad!!! I tried so hard to get good grades this semester and i dont know what to do know!!! Grr I lost my space in Top Ten from #2 to #18 BAH!!! How could this happen did I mention the some of the people are taking summer school to get a higher GPA AHHHHH!!! that means ill be in a much lower rank ahh i shouldnt have applied for the stupid college summer program im not even getting school credits aww im just so mad right now!!!here is what i got
History: B =3
AVID= A= 4
English Honors 10= A =5
Honors Chemistry=A =5
AP Spanish= B= 4
Pre Cal. = B= 3
24/6= 4.0+4.3333=8.3333/2=4.154
GAH SO MADD RIGHT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” – June 25, 2007

To point out: LostThoughts is a sophomore in high school concerned (or obsessed) about class rankings, and took 6 AP courses his/her sophomore year. Whether this is sufficient evidence that LostThoughts will cheat in order to be number two again and raise his/her GPA back up 0.1793 points is unknown. But without a doubt there have been many before him/her that have. I personally feel that LostThoughts will end up bending his/her academic virtues (if he/she hasn’t already) because there is an added stress factor: the overbearing parent:

“for me its kinda hard to mkae my dad proud…. i get the best grades from all my brothers, i do all this community help, i join sports, clubs, ect and accomplish mayn goals yet he never seems proud of me… it almost seems that he is most proud of my youger brother than me just bcause he is more like him…. im just happy that i have a greeat mother that loves me a lot and is proud of me for everything i do=)” – June 26, 2007

It’s extremely difficult for a student to have a morally upright education with a parent constantly pressuring him or her to do well and succeed on all fronts. The parent is supposed to be the source of ethicality, the principled ceiling, and if the ceiling applies too much weight, the moral pillar can’t help but crumble. Incidentally, LostThoughts wants to be a vegan.

Cheating should never be condoned. It destroys the order of the academia, and it’s unfair to everyone affected. However, it becomes difficult for a student to thrive when there is so much pressure to succeed. There must be a change to the educational system in order to limit plagiarism and cheating. I’m not suggesting lowering the educational standards – those are low enough without advocates – I’m merely suggesting a change in how high schools, universities, parents, and society as a whole views and judges its students. As Marc Gellman states, “Honoring the person who got the best grades in high school establishes the value of intelligence over virtue and, in the long run, it is virtue that will determine the fate of the graduates with far more precision than their grade-point averages.”