College Admissions Cheating

Cheating for college admission is just another form of free stuff. Many young students and millennials have already signed onto the free stuff agenda, supporting any and all. This supports all they think and all they do.  Getting it for free is OK, cheating included.

As a college math professor with four decades of experience, I can note today’s students are among the third generation of cheaters. This means they were raised by parents who were cheaters and these raised by parents, themselves cheaters.  Today’s cheater feels no guilt whatever about cheating.  For them it is merely the business of getting ahead.  Their parents and their parent’s parents did suffer some guilt but not enough, in a diminished curve.

Make no doubt, the kids of these cheating parents are already in the cheating game.  The parents were caught, but happily they are excused even though most kids knew the system was pay-rigged in their favor. Yet, to their view, cheating for admission only supports views they already had.  None feel bad or betrayed. Make no doubt…

They cheated to get in; they will cheat while they are in.

If you are among the 30% or so of Americans that still don't cheat, you are aghast at this event. The others are not. Getting caught was the only sin. Everyone’s skin is in this game. The only innocents are those who applied in good faith.

In many, if not most cases, it is the total selfishness of the parent to be able to say my child was admitted to Yale.  My kid is smart; therefore I’m smart too, in kind of a reverse causality.

Fact: You can get a great education Yale, but you must seek it out.  Most who simply take easy courses, with minimal requirement, get the same education as students at even the lower quartile of state schools. What you do get is better connections for the future, some social skills, and likely a better entry level job. Your parents get bragging rights – for which they have paid dearly.