Duke secondary help

[pcarlson05]

Hey all, I'm having trouble coming up with ideas for the Duke essay on a moral situation:

Outside of the classroom, (i.e., encounters with academic dishonesty, etc.) describe a difficult moral or ethical situation that you have encountered and how you dealt with it. What personal strengths, values, and beliefs helped you deal with or meet this challenge?

Anyone have an idea about what they are writing? I just want to hear some other ideas to help me get going.

Thanks

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[duke05]

can you list all the questions?

 

[SuzieQ3417]

I am re-using the essay from my Pritzker application. Their question was "Relate an experience in which you felt you truly helped someone. Please describe what you learned about your values and motivation for helping others." In the essay I talked about how a friend of mine started showing signs of severe anorexia, and how I took steps to get her into a treatment program. When I went to faculty/friends for advice, no one seemed willing to help the young woman out (much to my surprise). I talked about the morals and strengths that I drew upon to deal with this situation, which also happens to work nicely with the way Duke words their question. I have no encounters with academic dishonesty, so this is going to have to work. That's my essay in a nutshell...obviously the finished version makes more sense than what I just told you.

 

[pny06doc]

I am having the same problems with this question...can't really use any of my essays for other schools. The only related situation I can think of right now is pursuading people not to collaborate/copy problem sets and projects...but that counts as academic dishonesty in the classroom, which we are not supposed to write about...right? Any ideas would be awesome!!

duke05, the questions are listed here: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=212657&page=65&pp=20

 

[SuzieQ3417]

I am having the same problems with this question...can't really use any of my essays for other schools. The only related situation I can think of right now is pursuading people not to collaborate/copy problem sets and projects...but that counts as academic dishonesty in the classroom, which we are not supposed to write about...right? Any ideas would be awesome!!

duke05, the questions are listed here: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=212657&page=65&pp=20

They say "outside the classroom" but then list academic dishonesty as an example, so I think your situation is exactly what they are looking for. Where else does academic dishonesty occur if not in the classroom?

 

[roboyce]

They say "outside the classroom" but then list academic dishonesty as an example, so I think your situation is exactly what they are looking for. Where else does academic dishonesty occur if not in the classroom?

You are misreading the question. They give acadademic dishonesty as an example of what NOT to write about.

 

[SuzieQ3417]

You are misreading the question. They give acadademic dishonesty as an example of what NOT to write about.

"i.e." basically means "for example", so they are giving an example of what you could write about.

 

[Avalanche21]

Where did you guys get the app? Snail-mail, email?

 

[Centinel]

"i.e." basically means "for example", so they are giving an example of what you could write about.

No; that's a misinterpretation of the question. They're telling you the exact opposite.

 

[SuzieQ3417]

Email...I received mine this morning, but it seems like others received theirs earlier this week. Maybe they are spreading it out so they don't get overwhelmed with secondaries? The length of the secondary alone should take care of that.

 

[Avalanche21]

Email...I received mine this morning, but it seems like others received theirs earlier this week. Maybe they are spreading it out so they don't get overwhelmed with secondaries? The length of the secondary alone should take care of that.

Thanks, I got it. For some reason, I thought I checked my email this morning when I didn't

 

[roboyce]

No; that's a misinterpretation of the question. They're telling you the exact opposite.

Thank you.

 

[Centinel]

Thank you.

I was just echoing your earlier post. And for the record, I do see how people are misunderstanding the prompt; it's not written as clearly as it could have been.

 

[SuzieQ3417]

No; that's a misinterpretation of the question. They're telling you the exact opposite.

If they were meaning to exclude academic dishonesty as a topic to write about, they would have written something like "Outside the classroom (i.e., excluding academic dishonesty) describe..etc." Or "Excluding situations within the classroom (i.e. academic dishonesty) desribe...etc." I can understand how the wording they chose is a little ambiguous, but I still think reading the prompt as they have it printed leads you to conclude that they are listing academic dishonesty as a potential situation to describe. Am I crazy?

 

[roboyce]

If they were meaning to exclude academic dishonesty as a topic to write about, they would have written something like "Outside the classroom (i.e., excluding academic dishonesty) describe..etc." Or "Excluding situations within the classroom (i.e. academic dishonesty) desribe...etc." I can understand how the wording they chose is a little ambiguous, but I still think reading the prompt as they have it printed leads you to conclude that they are listing academic dishonesty as a potential situation to describe. Am I crazy?

I agree it is not written well, but I am, however, quite certain that they are looking for you to describe an ethical/moral situation outside of the classroom. A sentence should be able to be understood even if you take the paranthetical annotation away. Do that in this case and I think that you will see what we are talking about. The essay you describe above sounds like it would be just fine in this situation.

 

[Shredder]

just got it this morning in e-mail. this thing is the devil--anybody pondering discarding it?

 

[Centinel]

Outside of the classroom, (i.e., encounters with academic dishonesty, etc.) describe a difficult moral or ethical situation that you have encountered and how you dealt with it. What personal strengths, values, and beliefs helped you deal with or meet this challenge?

1) Their statement isn't strictly grammatically correct. The parenthetical should go before the comma. This is adding to the confusion.

2) Looking at the question's content from a logical standpoint, it would make no sense for them to ask you to 'describe a difficult moral or ethical question (such as encounters with academic dishonesty) outside the classroom'. If they cared to hear about academic dishonesty, they would allow you to talk about it regardless of the location of its occurrence.

3) Restating the question following the order but not the form, it reads, "Outside of the classroom (i.e., outside of encounters with academic dishonesty, etc.), describe a difficult moral or ethical situation that you have encountered and how you dealt with it." I think that this interpretation, relying on parallelism, is sensical.

I know that this is being overanalytical, but I'm killing time before a dental appointment.

 

[Centinel]

just got it this morning in e-mail. this thing is the devil--anybody pondering discarding it?

Shredder, since when has hard been something that you don't like?

 

[aumed22]

just got it this morning in e-mail. this thing is the devil--anybody pondering discarding it?

I'm seriously considering not doing it. I wasn't sure if I wanted to apply there anyway, and now with a crazy hard secondary........I just might forget to do it.

 

[Shredder]

Shredder, since when has hard been something that you don't like?

haha...applying to here and upenn were stretches for me, but at least penn only wanted my money to reject me. these guys want money and tons of time and effort? must measure the cost and benefit of every transaction!

and they decided to throw in a community service essay

 

[DarkFark]

just got it this morning in e-mail. this thing is the devil--anybody pondering discarding it?

I think I'll do it, but it's definitely going to spend some quality time on the back-burner.

 

[pseudoknot]

just got it this morning in e-mail. this thing is the devil--anybody pondering discarding it?

Yeah, I'll do it, but not today...

 

[TommyGunn04]

I agree it is not written well, but I am, however, quite certain that they are looking for you to describe an ethical/moral situation outside of the classroom.

Roboyce is right, they specifically DON'T want you to write about academic dishonesty. A bunch of my friends were on the committee last year, and I've heard some of them joke about how a handful of applicants still wrote essays on the topic they were specifically told not to write about! I guess that makes a lot more sense now, since apparently it's a poorly worded prompt. Basically any other moral/ethical topic is fair game, in my understanding. Academic dishonesty is the obvious choice for this type of essay, which is why I think they specifically forbid it. Otherwise, they'd be inundated with countless variants of the typical "I saw some guy cheating on an orgo test and I had to decide whether or not to turn him in" essay. I think they're trying to get you to come up with something better and more original than the obvious. Plus, I'm sure the readers would get really bored reading 5,000 essays about cheating on tests.