From what you have revealed on this thread, the following question would have served you (and the rest of us) much better than what you had originally posted:
Q: Hey SDN-ers, what are the practical (not moral, not ethical) consequences (short- and long-term) of not reporting coursework attempted at a community college, prior to matriculation into a 4-year university program, and not included in the 4-year university record, when applying to medical school. *** Please do not give me your opinions of whether this is right or wrong. I repeat, do NOT give me opinions about the ethical or moral merits or deficiencies of this course of action!
Let me take one last crack at this issue before moving on to other questions I have.
Why? You have made it quite clear to us that your stance is righteous. So, why do you want to convince us, the silly old folks suffering from high-horse-itis? You already know you are right...
The United States of America is willing (or all too willing, depending on your point of view) to give redemption to Mafia hit men (via their Witness Protection Program), run of the mill murderers, rapists, corrupt politicians, incorrigibly wicked foreign dictators, embezzlers, robbers, welfare cheats, and boatloads of other criminals . . . but not a young person who was caught up in life-threatening circumstances that were outside his control ? And that should forever preclude said young student from attending an American medical school? It doesn't seem fair. Correction: It's fundamentally flawed, is what it is.
An individual, an educational institution, a government (among other entities) all have vastly different responsibilities, have distinct reasons for being, and are expected to adhere to markedly different codes of conduct. These issues have been explored in depth by people far wiser than I (and may I humbly suggest, even you), ranging from Confucius, Plato, Aristotle to Hobbes, Locke, Hume, to Thomas Paine, Karl Marx and many others. I humbly posit that an exploration of political philosophy may prove to be quite enlightening, if you are willing to entertain the possibility that you are not always correct.
I heard about a clergyman who admitted to having an affair with a boy many years ago. He was forgiven by his superiors, members of his church, and strangely even the local prosecutor. Hence, it's possible to rape a child and get off scot-free without suffering any consequence more serious than publicly apologizing for that transgression. But it is evidently taboo for a reformed student to obtain a fresh start?
This line of reasoning is sophomoric and is based on a logical fallacy.
I don't think it is criminal or unethical to want a fresh start academically. Others may disagree, but I'd love to hear them explain exactly why someone in my shoes does not deserve to start over. Medical school applicants frequently repeat the MCAT exam. I've never heard of an admissions committee member discount a MCAT score because it belonged to someone who retook that exam. If it's kosher to retake the MCAT, why can't you retake a class without incurring a perpetual black mark on your record? "Because the powers-that-be said so" Sorry, that's not a good enough reason for me.
First, as QofQuimica already pointed out, the MCAT does not go away, ever. There is a magical word "deserve" in the question you posed above. This word presupposes a certain degree of entitlement, which is largely unsubstantiated. Despite the fact that circumstances beyond your control sabotaged your academic performance in the past (I have previously detailed that you are not the only one), your academic record was and remains your responsibility. Lest you feel unduly criticized, I will demonstrate my point on my own case. Circumstances beyond my control devastated my academic record as well, and a large degree of raw, human sympathy can certainly be allowed for my circumstances. However, no one was forcing me to continue to sign up for classes. I did not wake up one morning in late May and suddenly realize that I had "spectacularly bombed" an entire academic year. I was the one who had stopped attending classes, stopped hearing what the professors said even when I was there, stopped turning in homework, stopped writing meaningful responses to exam questions. It was my responsibility to realize that this was a problem. I was the one living my life... as unlivable as it seemed at the time, I was living it and I had yet to learn how to live it with more courage, more responsibility, more wisdom. In fact, I am still learning all those things and so much more... and from where I stand now, I can plainly see that this is the one class I will never complete.
In response to your question of why someone does not "deserve" to have a clean slate, I will humbly posit that one can only "deserve" opportunities based on what he/she has done,
not on what life/the world/others have done to him/her.
The difficulty arises when you lie about something in order to circumvent admissions committees from discovering your initial college failures. That lie becomes the basis of the percieved moral transgression. Which, of course, takes us to those age-old ethics problems: Would you lie to save a life ? If you had the chance to amend(falsify, whatever) the organ donation list so that your ailing, dying mother would be first in line for the donor's liver rather than #234, would you do it ?
Some people would have you believe that: Nope, Sorry Mom, rules are rules. I would suffer from a condition called 'lack of integrity' if I went ahead and saved your life. G' Luck in Heaven.
You have swiftly arrived at the slippery slope. In my very subjective, very biased, very personal opinion, a person who rationalizes as you have above should have no place in medicine. If you are willing to put your mother (as dear as she may be to you) above 233 other people who are someone else's much loved parent, child, spouse, sibling, simply and only because you (unlike others) are in a position to do so, there is a chance that you may be fundamentally incapable of practicing medicine in a manner consistent with the basic tenets of the profession (please see
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2498.html for further information).
Like I said earlier with all due respect: Give me a break of some common sense. The level of high-horse-itis in some( only 1 or 2) posts is stupefying. Now, I'm not equating my case to that of a dying mom, not at all, just showing you that it's not as black-and-white'ish as you'd like to see it. The sense I'm getting from some posts is: "We've also overcame tough hardships, put in our time and never challenged the rules, how dare this young upstart jump ahead without putting in his time, how dare he challenge the rules that throwed us off schedule but which we accepted ?"
Nothing in this thread was quite as stupefying as the elliptical arguments and logical fallacies, which you have attempted to push down our throats. This applies to the rest of your post, which I will stop quoting. As a final thought, neither moral relativism nor egoism are novel concepts, and as strange and nonsensical as it may appear to you, neither have been adopted as fundamental elements of medical practice.
