All In by McCray Suzanne;

Author:McCray, Suzanne; [McCray, Suzanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: EDUCATION / Educational Policy & Reform / General
ISBN: 2007812
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
Published: 2013-08-16T00:00:00+00:00

Ethics and the Application Process

AN HONOR CODE FOR STUDENTS

Student cheating at universities across the country is problematic. According to recent studies, nearly two-thirds of all students say they have cheated at some time during their careers.4 According to a New York Times article by Richard Perez-Pena, students cheat because it is easy and goes relatively unpunished. In it he interviews Donald McCabe, a well-known researcher on cheating patterns, who concludes that pressures and fierce competition have caused students “to excuse more from themselves and other students, and that’s abetted by the adults around them.” McCabe continues, “There have always been struggling students who cheat to survive, but more and more, there are students at the top who cheat to thrive.”5

There is no more intensely pressured environment than national award competitions. Advisors may assume that their students would never cheat or that they could never cheat, since a personal statement cannot be plagiarized. In the fall of 2010, however, Adam Wheeler, a then senior at Harvard, had the audacity to do exactly that. He had been lying and cheating for years at and about various institutions, but he did not get caught until he submitted a Fulbright and a Rhodes application to his resident dean for endorsement.6 The level of fraud in this student’s career was stunning and unusual, even when considering national statistics on cheating in college. His résumé looked impressive, but it was based on dishonestly achieved gains. If Professor James Simpson had not recognized that the prose was nearly word for word from his colleague Stephen Greenblatt, Wheeler may have been shortlisted for the Rhodes.7

What happened at Harvard was, of course, unusual. Wheeler was guilty of misrepresenting himself long before he arrived there. Even while on probation, with the threat of prison to dissuade him, he sent out a fraudulent résumé for a nonpaying five-hour-per-week internship.8 He is not the student we normally have to guard against, but his behavior did create a discussion on campuses about how to safeguard our admissions processes and how to make sure that students’ résumés reflect work they have actually done.9 Advisors probably do not need to be on the outlook for Adam Wheelers. Most advisors will work their entire lives and never meet such a person, but advisors should still remember the case, understand that it is possible that variations of his behavior could happen at any institution, and be on the outlook for exaggeration, for padding, and for misrepresentation should they occur. Many students accept spin as a part of doing business. Advisors need to ask questions of a student or of others if an application looks too good to be true.

The NAFA Code of Ethics makes clear that students “should ensure that all application materials, including but not limited to personal statements, résumés, proposals, essays, shall be the sole and original work of the applicant,” citing paraphrased material and providing sources.10 Students should also be encouraged to delete any activities in which they had no real substantive involvement. Exaggeration in this context is fraud, and of course, it is lying in any context.

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