The New York Times article, Stuyvesant Students Describe the How and the Why of Cheating, written by Vivian Yee, primarily focuses on the reasons why students choose to cheat. These answers all come from alumni of Stuyvesant High School. They each give a unique perspective on the issue of cheating, as well as giving their own moral justification for cheating on a test. Three main reasons why students are found to cheat, as seen through interviews conducted by the author herself are, the lack of respect for material being taught, and cheating due to a harsh competitive environment. In order to refute these rationalizations behind cheating the methods of cheating will be taken into consideration. One of the foremost reasons that people cheat …show more content…
Yee brings up the fact that for these students, “anything less than a grade of 85 is “failing”; achieve anything more than a grade-point average of 95, and you might be bound for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or Yale” (Yee 5). The fundamental issue with this is very reminiscence of the issue with the last point that was discussed. The issue here is that if cheating is a necessary means to get into a good college, then the student who cheated is not ready for the curriculum of that college. Hard work should be the deciding factor of who makes it into Ivy League colleges. Cheating your way into a college means that under normal circumstances you wouldn’t be prepared for the work that the college has to offer. Students cope with this by making their own moral systems which state that, “cheating to get by in a required class is more acceptable than cheating on an Advanced Placement exam” (Yee 5). Cheating is still cheating regardless of the context that it is done in. Even cheating on homework so that you can get into an Ivy League school is morally deprived and shows that you were not meant for those types of colleges. Cheating to stay competitive means that the cheater should not have been in the competition in the first place. That is why I believe this is also not an acceptable excuse for