West Point Cheating Scandal

NJROTC-CC said:
Do you honestly believe that the average math SAT scores (if not academic credentials overall) of the football team is not SIGNIFICANTLY lower than the average? I would be interested in seeing YOUR supporting proof that I am wrong. Of course, neither of us have access to the statistics.
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My son has the academics. What I am suggesting to you is there are more parts to the whole for developing leadership and officer material than just perfect math scores.

All midshipmen/cadets bring different talents to the table. Including athletes.
 
A1Janitor said:
My son has the academics. What I am suggesting to you is there are more parts to the whole for developing leadership and officer material than just perfect math scores.

All midshipmen/cadets bring different talents to the table. Including athletes.
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Your son is may be an exception. However, You totally miss the point. I’m sure that the captain of a championship Division III football team brings all the same leadership characteristics as the captain of a Division I team. SPORTS ARE IMPORTANT. But standards are lowered to be Division I and to what end? Explain how being Division I in sports helps national defense more than being Division III in sports. I would like to know. The Coast Guard thinks you are wrong.
 
NJROTC-CC said:
You totally miss the point. I’m sure that the captain of a championship Division III football team gets all the same leadership experiences as the captain of a Division I team. SPORTS ARE IMPORTANT. But standards are lowered to be Division I and to what end? Explain how being Division I in sports helps national defense more than being Division III in sports. I would like to know.
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You are assuming standards are lowered, because you assume athletes aren’t as smart.

Cheating scandals happen with both athletes and non-athletes.

Admissions have whole candidate scores for a reason. I assume there are plenty of midshipmen and cadets that aren’t D1 athletes that could play D3 sports.
 
Ok folks. One. More. Time.

The cheaters were permitted to stay at West Point because the policy for some time has moved away from automatic attrition, especially for Plebes and those who step forward and admit guilt. While it is debatable as to this being the proper course of action in such cases nothing in that respect was done differently than other cases in the recent past and Gen Williams did NOT change this policy. No favoritism was shown in that respect as far as anyone knows. Talking to my Cadets they back this up. They may or may not agree with this COA, but they state it is consistent with current policy. Those who claim that Gen Williams somehow changed the honor code to permit certain Cadets to stay have no idea what they are talking about.

The only question is the timing of the punishments, when the Cadets should start them. One article stated some should have started 30 November, but we don’t know if this is the case. If it is the case we don’t know why. We can speculate, but without more facts it’s just that. Speculation. The punishments may have been delayed until all are adjudicated, or delayed for some other reason.
Again, I’m not saying we shouldn’t question this timing, but anyone who states they know why is just speculating at this time.
 
A1Janitor said:
Again, test scores is but one attribute for the whole candidate score.

Are people suggesting we should just set the admissions to the highest SAT or ACT?

Are we suggesting athletes with lower scores aren’t valuable officers and cadets?

Is there a study we can point to that shows the success of athletes as office
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That was a reply to your statement about assuming standards are lower for athletes. Personally not a fan of ACT/SAT being given so much weight.
 
NJROTC-CC said:
Division 1 only forces the academies to lower their overall standards without any benefit. The service academy teams are all weak Division 1 teams anyway.
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From my gut to your keyboard! If you lie with dogs, you will get fleas.

The standards being lost are all those other than athletic standards. I don't mean to suggest that D1 athletes are more likely violate those standards, but this episode suggests, form a layman's perspective, that leadership has different standards for holding athletes vs. non-athletes to account for violations.
 
here2learn said:
That was a reply to your statement about assuming standards are lower for athletes. Personally not a fan of ACT/SAT being given so much weight.
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Standards collectively. Meaning - a D1 athlete isn’t as worthy as someone not a D1 athlete - because of one component of WCS.

I agree about SAT and ACT not getting so much weight. It can corroborate class rank or academic achievement
 
A1Janitor said:
Again, test scores is but one attribute for the whole candidate score.

Are people suggesting we should just set the admissions to the highest SAT or ACT?

Are we suggesting athletes with lower scores aren’t valuable officers and cadets?

Is there a study we can point to that shows the success of athletes as officers?
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Good point. Football is manifestly much more important to the Academy's leadership than either test scores or honor.
Cheers,
 
usmadata said:
Good point. Football is manifestly much more important to the Academy's leadership than either test scores or honor.
Cheers,
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I am talking about admissions ... not preferential treatment, if that did in fact occur.

I favor strict punishment for cheating fwiw.
 
Cookiemom said:
If the cheaters were not athletes would they still be there?
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An interesting question is whether the honor-system developmental model was intended specifically to help prevent athletes from washing out.
Among other changes, of course, but we see that Army started winning (for the most part) seasons right as the "developmental model" with the "willful admissions process" was adopted.
football record.JPG

Coincidence? Gentle reader, you can decide.
Cheers,
 
MullenLE said:
And oh by the way...it's not even about LTG Williams, the Supe, the man, the total professional. It's about what he SAID... It's an affront to " I will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those that do" It's not amended or modified by ""has resulted in an inequitable application of consequences and developmental opportunities for select groups of cadets." That doesn't hack it in the foxhole or similar combat environments. The older folks here, know what I mean...No doubt, if LTG Williams ever sees this, he knows what I mean :stretcher:
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Cookiemom said:
If the cheaters were not athletes would they still be there?
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Yes. One. More. Time. The honor code was changed LONG before this incident from a pure attrition honor code. Anyone who states that Gen Williams changed this part of the honor code doesn’t know what they are talking about.
 
usmadata said:
An interesting question is whether the honor-system developmental model was intended specifically to help prevent athletes from washing out.
Among other changes, of course, but we see that Army started winning (for the most part) seasons right as the "developmental model" with the "willful admissions process" was adopted.
View attachment 7697

Coincidence? Gentle reader, you can decide.
Cheers,
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You’re implying that this is when West Point went away from the pure attrition model. This is false.
“Prior to 1976, separation was the standard punishment for any violation of the Cadet Honor Code. This attrition model assumes a Cadet’s character is fully established. Therefore, any violation of the Cadet Honor Code allegedly reveals an irreparable character flaw. After the 1976 Cheating Scandal, the Secretary of the Army granted the Superintendent discretion to impose punishments other than separation. Superintendents have since increased their use of discretion. This new developmental model is based on scholarship that shows character development is a life-long process and that growth often occurs after failure.”
 
UHBlackhawk - I agree with you. My theme is not about the change from a pure attrition honor code or LTG Williams himself. It's focused solely on this comment from the West Point Supt...any Supt = "has resulted in an inequitable application of consequences and developmental opportunities for select groups of cadets."
 
If anyone's curious about the "site" that someone talked about earlier, let me know and I'll pm you if you already don't know.

Also, just want to point out that as a TA at an Ivy league school, I will say that this "site" that the students use to get answers is heavily monitored by us TA's. In fact, my professor pays for the subscription fee for all TA's just so that we can post INCORRECT and/or utterly stupid answers on that site. That way, we catch cheaters that use that site.

Just this past semester, I found a test question on that site for the Linear Algebra class I was TA'ing for. I uploaded a copy of my thermodynamics homework, and to my surprise, 3 students had thermodynamics as their answer to an Algebra test. All 3 students (who were interested in pursuing banking and med school post-grad) had their careers ruined. Cheating is an automatic "0" on transcript at my school, which will kill GPA's and any chance of a banking, medical school, consulting, etc. career.
 
UHBlackhawk said:
Yes. One. More. Time. The honor code was changed LONG before this incident from a pure attrition honor code. Anyone who states that Gen Williams changed this part of the honor code doesn’t know what they are talking about.
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So...a cadet will not lie, cheat or steal is out. Very sad.
 
UHBlackhawk said:
Yes. One. More. Time. The honor code was changed LONG before this incident from a pure attrition honor code. Anyone who states that Gen Williams changed this part of the honor code doesn’t know what they are talking about.
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One. More. Time. Athletes get special treatment. You as a helicopter dad who sees everything as an assault on you D1 DD can fallow Sgt Shultz and see nothing. The Academies are just following the rest of the colleges and unfortunately becoming more like them.
 
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