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She deserved it. QQ
I didn't know people would have the balls to do this! I have never even thought of doing that... I would probably wet myself.
Here is a pre-med dilemma for you all.....
One of my ex-classmates has a 3.93 at an Ivy League university. She is a junior and a biology major/pre-med. Two weeks ago, she received a grade of 96 on her chemistry midterm, but she needed a 98 to receive an A+. She decided to cheat and change a two point question to the correct answer when she received the exam back and submit it for a regrade. Unknown to her, the professor had photocopied the original exam and compared her original to the regrade and they were different. She was immediately placed on academic probation and the honor council decided to give her a harsh punishment to set an example for other students who would consider cheating. She will either:
(A) be expelled or
(B) fail her chemistry class, withdraw from all of her classes this semester, and be suspended for two extra semesters (Spring and Fall 2009)
She still expressed hopes of returning to her original college (if she is not expelled). If she is, she will finish up her undergraduate career at another college. She desperately wants to be a physician and is a deeply empathetic person, but with this large stain on her record, is there ANY REMOTE CHANCE she could get into an allopathic medical school or will this essentially prevent her from that?
The honors bio courses at my university does this too, but they tell us about it, and they hand back the photocopy of the test instead of the original. Apparently that was not enough to deter people from cheating, as we were told that in the past students have tried to write on the photocopied version, and then photocopy it again, to fake it as their test, thinking it would pass off and that the TA's would be too lazy to actually compare with the original.
LizzyM, do you think it makes a difference that the school's punishment was so harsh? (Perhaps it was a justified measure but it was a pretty intense punishment).
In my school, I know that kids who have been caught cheating usually fail the exam that they cheated on. I've never heard of anyone getting expelled for cheating.
Do you think it makes a difference to medical schools that the school chose to take the stance that it did?
Here is a pre-med dilemma for you all.....
One of my ex-classmates has a 3.93 at an Ivy League university. She is a junior and a biology major/pre-med. Two weeks ago, she received a grade of 96 on her chemistry midterm, but she needed a 98 to receive an A+. She decided to cheat and change a two point question to the correct answer when she received the exam back and submit it for a regrade. Unknown to her, the professor had photocopied the original exam and compared her original to the regrade and they were different. She was immediately placed on academic probation and the honor council decided to give her a harsh punishment to set an example for other students who would consider cheating. She will either:
(A) be expelled or
(B) fail her chemistry class, withdraw from all of her classes this semester, and be suspended for two extra semesters (Spring and Fall 2009)
She still expressed hopes of returning to her original college (if she is not expelled). If she is, she will finish up her undergraduate career at another college. She desperately wants to be a physician and is a deeply empathetic person, but with this large stain on her record, is there ANY REMOTE CHANCE she could get into an allopathic medical school or will this essentially prevent her from that?
WOW! At UVA she would be OUT...no questions asked...no returning...Thomas Jefferson's Honor Code...Her school is being very "Ivy" by allowing her to return after a year! Makes you wonder how many times she cheated and got away with it! Is that 3.93 honest.
I think I know exactly who you are talking about. I go to that same institution and there is a little more to the story than you tell. The issue of cheating was first discussed in by the orgo lab TAs because people had been buying pure product offline and replacing their "synthesized" prodcut with this authentic product. After that was discovered, the whole chemistry department cracked down on all types of cheating.
What the hell goes on at this school?
The majority of your posts when we discuss other topics are always extremely "liberal" and what I'd classify as a bleeding heart (supporting welfare, universal healthcare, etc). However, when we discuss a topic like this, you suddenly turn super conservative and want to damn the rest of this girls life for cheating. Why? People make mistakes, and they should not have to pay for the rest of their lives for one small error in judgement. The moral superiority that permeates throughout your postings is indicative of someone who has not lived in the real world and has a loose grip on reality. You live in this sheltered little world where you masquerade pretending to be a compassionate liberal, and then your true colors come out on SDN with your snide judgemental remarks towards someone you have never met, and have no basis with which to make a character analysis other then a short posting about one infraction.
People have also tried to make an analogy between cheating when the stakes are only 2 points, and what the person might do when its for something more important. That is ridiculous to try to make the link between the two. There are many instances where people will do something wrong BECAUSE the stakes are relatively low, and then will do the right thing or refrain from an offense BECAUSE the stakes are much higher. In the grand scheme of things, cheating for 2 points is a relatively inconsequential offense, you will not be put in jail for 10 years, you will not be fined $100,000, and you will not have to register in your neighborhood wherever you go under the 18 USC:41-5 "Neurotic Judgemental Premed Act of 2008."
Instead of trying to ostracize these people who make errors in judgement, we ought to try and understand the system that we created which put the pressure on them to err in judgement the way they did. It would work under the same logic we use that allows physicians with substance abuse problems to seek treatment/help from their employers rather than firing them or taking away their license to practice.
For those of you who posted here condeming the OP's friend to hell (ie. the NA NA NA child), you obviously lack an innate empathitic emotion, and will thus probably not make all that great of a doctor.
You just made a GIGANTIC leap here!!! First, you're using the wrong word. Empathy means that you can relate to the situation. If you can, then it explains why you're defending her. I, however, can't because I have never cheated. So what I would have is sympathy, not empathy. Second, I have all the sympathy in the world for a person who is sick or gets into a bad situation. But this is borderline insane. Two measly points? You're going to risk everything for two measly points when it doesn't even matter since a 4.0 is a 4.0 on AMCAS?
But there's another issue here. This girl wanted an advantage against the rest of us -- ALL of us pre-meds who bust our asses to earn our A's and our A+'s with hard work instead of cheating. We all end up in that same applicant pool. So how do we know her A was even deserved? Perhaps her true grade would have been a B, but she had equations written on her palm or her shoe or whatever. Why should I be giving her my sympathy when she tried to one-up me by cheating when I study very, very hard for my grades, be it a B, a B+, an A, or an A+? Screw that! If she's willing to cheat to get a bump from an A to an A+, it proves that she's more than a perfectionist. She's obsessed -- to the point of being reckless -- with perfection and sorry, but I don't think that's a good quality for a physician.
For those of you who posted here condeming the OP's friend to hell (ie. the NA NA NA child), you obviously lack an innate empathitic emotion, and will thus probably not make all that great of a doctor.
really? Do you mean perfection is not a good quality? or being reckless?
I would have to say that this doesn't bode well for Ima.
Aside from all the reasons that Lizzy pointed out, this just demonstrates that she makes poor decisions. That was a very high risk to low reward action she took and now she's going to get burned on it.
I'd be worried about putting someone with that mentality in charge of the care of others.
really? Do you mean perfection is not a good quality? or being reckless?
maybe I am just a cynic but I belive most people would cheat if they could get away with it. To brand this girl as a complete moral degenerate seems harsh and ignorant. Only difference between her and every other applicants is that she got caught. Cmon people how many of us may have "exagerrated" our ec's. That's not exactly honest either
I am not sure if someone mentioned this yet as there is a wide range of responses given and I havent had the opportunity to get thru them all.
I say your frind needs therapy before anything. She obviously has emotional problems and needs to reflect on her self and action. If I was an on an ADCOM committee I would deny her because she seems like one of those people that would make a horrible doctor and carry this attitude at doing anything to just be on the top without regard to anyone or anything. Grades alone dont make a great doctor, I doubt you can be empathetic as you say and so moral with such behavior. My conclusion:
She needs therapy immediately, girl gots problems, take it from someone who been thru the whole pyschiatry system.
She can get into a med school easily, probably not one she could of got into, but she seems to have the gunner attitude to make it somewhere, even if she went to the carib. She can also try to challenge the decision and hire and lawyer and do all that crap. One person at the dental school at my undergrad got expelled for some reason, challenged it and got reinstated, it was a long process, but worth not losing your career over. Yet I got to mention his mistake was no where close to what your friend did.
I am sure if your friend voluntarily elected to get counseling, take a semester off, do some type of community service/ awareness about dishonesty or campus awareness about the consequences of such actions, and if she just showed sincerity in her effort to correct this mistake she will be looked at more favoribly.
she deserved this, at the very least. No sympathies for a criminal who, in the best state of her mind, decides to commit a crime. If she had stolen a bank, I would not have given a damn about that crime. But she tried to steal my, or your or someone else's spot in med school and she deserves an even harsher punishment. A mean cold numb reality of this drama which we call life.
by this reasoning we should knock off all the URM who take your spot with lower numbers
by this reasoning we should knock off all the URM who take your spot with lower numbers
It would be so sweet if in one of her letters of recommendation it said "this student has shown that she will do whatever it takes to reach her goals."
Once again someone confuses "medical problems" with "character problems".
Just because you're an idiot, it doesn't mean you need therapy.
Unless by "therapy" you mean "a swift kick in the ass".
This is like pulling of an amazing bank robbery then going back into the vault for 20 more bucks and getting arrested. I doubt it diminishes her chance of being an MD to 0, but she's going to have to demonstrate some pretty altruistic reasons why she now wants to be an MD. Probably need to go the non-trad route.