When success is measured by numbers and perfection is the expectation, students often find themselves trapped in a system that values results over integrity—leaving many to ask: Is cheating the only way to survive in high school?
One student who has never cheated on a test before says that he doesn’t cheat on tests because “[He’s] scared to have it on his permanent record.” Although he doesn’t cheat on tests, he states that he has cheated on busy work to get it done faster. He states that one reason for doing this is because he feels pressured by his parents to get good grades. He also said that these pressures “make [him] put more pressure on [himself] and [his] test scores.” If you cheat, you will probably get better test scores, so this is why many kids do it.
Another student explains why they haven’t ever cheated on a test. “It never came to mind and I wasn’t going to risk my grade.” This is an example of a great student putting honesty and integrity over cheating to get a good grade. You have to fail to learn sometimes. When asked if they are weighed on by societal norms and parent expectations he said, “Yeah, sometimes.”
Even students who don’t want to cheat are still impacted by the pressures of our society.
In 2019 the college admissions bribery scandal happened. It is also known as Operation Varsity Blues and it involved wealthy parents, including celebrities, who used bribes to get their children admission to good universities like UCLA, USC, and Yale. Some parents paid a lot of money to manipulate SAT or ACT scores by hiring other people to take the tests or changing their children’s test answers. Others used fake sport profiles to make it look as if their children were recruited as athletes, even if they had never played the sport before. These cheating parents faced legal consequences, including fines, probation, and brief prison sentences.This scandal highlighted inequities in the college admissions process, making people think more about privilege and access in education.
One student, who has cheated on tests before, shared a funny cheating story with us. “I was in seventh grade and I didn’t want to do a story so me and my friend got on ChatGPT and made a story on that. Then I used a language changer and went through 4 languages to change words I would never use. After that, my friend somehow got caught because he didn’t change his story at all and I got caught with him.” This account shows how far students will go to get a good grade in a class. This student went through many steps to make sure he didn’t get caught but in the end, he still got caught. When asked why he cheated on a summative grade he said, “I don’t know, I didn’t really want to do it and also my parents wanted me to get my grade up.” This shows how our culture of striving for perfection is weighing on students and making them feel like they have to be dishonest to survive in schools.
All in all, our society’s definition of success is putting a lot of pressure on students and parents need help their kids advocate for help.. Parents need to relieve some pressure off of their kid and make sure that if they need support that they get it.
