Integrity. This value is an essential piece of Williston’s mission statement and is considered by many to be one of the most important elements of a person’s character. Junior Loren Po explains, “In a nut shell, integrity is truth. More specifically, truth to oneself. How can one succeed if he or she cannot even be truthful to themselves?” General integrity has a crucial component that is particularly pressing to students: academic integrity. Academic integrity is a value teachers and parents work hard to engrain into young students’ minds from pre-school to grad-school. Yet, each year, in schools everywhere, issues arise with plagiarism, cheating, and dishonesty.

There are theories and excuses for why students cheat from all types of sources, but one that comes up repeatedly is the importance placed on grades and scores. As Denise Clark Pope, a Stanford professor, told the Stanford newspaper, “Students feel as if their life success depends on getting the top SAT scores and the highest grades.” Students, especially high performing students, are under a lot of pressure to earn high grades in order to gain admittance to highly competitive colleges. At times, grades can seem more important than actually learning and understanding the material. When a student becomes overwhelmed and unable to perform well, he or she can be tempted to cheat.

Greg Tuleja, the Academic Dean at Williston, says that the most common cause of cheating he sees is procrastination. “[Cheating] almost always happens spontaneously as a spur of the moment thing rather than being planned,” Tuleja says. Laziness, contrary to what many people believe, is most often not the cause of cheating. “Sometimes students don’t feel like doing their work, but that isn’t particularly common,” Tuleja explains.

Very few things are left untouched by technology’s influence these days, and cheating is no exception. The vast amounts of information and resources that have become available through the internet have made cheating easier to do and harder to detect. Greg Tuleja remarks that “For all technology gives us academically, there is a big danger there. The line between my work and their work becomes blurred.” The internet is crawling with websites ready and eager to help students cheat and plagiarize work. Information from a book is easily cited, whereas internet articles are often plagiarized themselves and don’t include the authors. The internet has also made foreign language translators easily accessible and extremely tempting to students who may be struggling. These students often believe they won’t be caught, but this is not the case. Anyone fluent in a language knows that translators are very often inaccurate and it is usually immediately clear to language teachers when one has been used.

The principle of honesty in academic works does not disappear after high school. On the contrary, colleges take cheating far more seriously than most high schools do. A quick Google search of “academic integrity” will mostly reveal pages off of college websites, explaining their policies and position on the topic. Consequences for cheating vary from school to school, but while most high schools give the student a zero on the specific assignment, most colleges give the student a zero in the entire course.

Just a year ago, Harvard, known for its acceptance of only extremely high-performing students, experienced one of the largest cheating scandals in its history. According to “Students Accused of Cheating Return Awkwardly to a Changed Harvard” by Richard Perez-Pena of The New York Times, the college investigated around one-hundred forty students for cheating on the same exam, and around seventy were found guilty and forced to withdraw for a year.  The scandal was over a take-home exam that students were expected to complete by themselves; however, the test was reportedly more difficult than they had prepared for and students felt pressured to cheat. Perez-Pena discloses: “students reported that grading got tougher and exam questions became harder.” The students that chose to re-enroll have returned this year, with permanent marks on their records that could affect future employment and admission to graduate schools.

Unfortunately, every school experiences problems with academic dishonesty. But, there are things schools can do to try and prevent students from cheating. Placing an importance on the value of learning and knowledge rather than grades and scores is one technique many teachers are happy to employ in their classes. Another step schools take in preventing dishonesty is making expectations as clear as possible to students. Greg Tuleja reports that this is one of Williston’s goals in its own cheating policies: “Our expression of our ideas are very clear to the students. We don’t want students confused about what is allowed and what is not allowed,” Tuleja says. Williston’s policy on cheating is spelled out clearly in the handbook. Under the title: “CHEATING,” there is one direct statement: “Cheating is not tolerated.”

Yes, school is hard sometimes. Assignments can become overwhelming and stress can make everything worse. Cheating can be tempting under these circumstances, but it can most certainly be avoided. “Students need to think about what they are doing,” Tuleja advises. “When you are behind and rushing, just stop, take a deep breath, and think: ‘is this something the teacher would object to?’” If you are not able to perform your best or are struggling, talk to your teachers. Believe it or not, they have been there before, and are likely to understand. The worst case scenario when you don’t cheat is that you get a bad grade. When that is compared to a zero, possible probation, and an upsetting letter home, cheating becomes the worst of options.