Means and Motivation of Cheating

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Cheating at the School is very prevalent, but why? There are many reasons as to why one might cheat, varying from a lack of understanding about their assignments to pressure coming from their parents and the school community.

The average GPA of the class of 2024 after the first semester of their junior year at the School was 4.09 weighted, with the national average being approximately 3.0. This contrast demonstrates the level at which students are expected to perform which directly correlates to the levels of cheating at the School, as the higher expectations surrounding academic performance create an environment where an A is the norm. Sophomore Lukas Dittmar says, “There’s this idea that you have to get an A.” This, he says, forces students to cheat when they are stressed and don’t have the resources. Dittmar attributes this to the social pressure at the School to get good grades. He says, “An A gets you [validation] from your peers, it gets you validation from your parents.” 

The prevalence of cheating at the School is extreme, with 85.9 percent of students who responded to an expos poll saying they knew someone at the School who had cheated. 50 percent of students mentioned grades as the reason for cheating at the School. The pressure to get good grades stems from pressure surrounding higher education, specifically, the focus on college. The main motivation for students at the School to get good grades is getting into college. One anonymous respondent elaborated, saying, “You can tell students it’s all about learning, but at the end of the day, grades are the first thing that colleges look at to see if they should continue with your application, so students will do what it takes to get their As.”

Cheating is highly normalized at the School, with 54.9 percent of poll respondents feeling that at least some assignments are okay to cheat on. According to an anonymous student, “Hearing that others cheat normalizes cheating.” This, along with the general pressure to get good grades, fosters the environment for rampant cheating at the School. These two factors are key to understanding why people cheat, but why is cheating so widely acceptable? An anonymous student states: “School isn’t valuable to a lot of people. The point of education to some is to simply get through it.” This lack of motivation to learn is a main cause of cheating at the school.

The main assignments students mentioned when asked what schoolwork is okay to cheat on are assignments that have no merit to their learning, or “busy work.” An anonymous student says that students cheat “[To get] better grades and to save time. Lots of the work is busy work and it makes more sense to cheat to save time.” The rationale of these students is that if the work is tedious and therefore “busy work,” the assignment is okay to cheat on as it doesn’t have a negative impact on their learning. 

The pressure to get good grades creates an environment that not only accepts cheating at the School, but fosters it. Students will not stop dealing with stress, but it is important to understand how to combat cheating as well as how the School’s culture impacts cheating. As one student says “We… have a very competitive academic environment, so there is a lot of… pressure to [cheat and] get good grades.”