Another Cheating Scandal

To answer to the people who replied to my message, I still don't think it's cultural. It's just a question of knowing that you'll get away with it. Everybody knows that bribery (for example) is illegal, but if that's the way to get things done and if you can get away with it, then so be it.

Just my 2 eurocents...

PS: maybe this debate is getting too philosophical...

Oh man, I can't catch up with this thread, I'm in the middle of Egypt on vacation .

So "cool" here! Well regarding the bribe cultural thing though I have somthing to say that is happening over and over here. All the temples and museums that I visited and that fotography was prohibited, and every single one I was approached by guards telling me: "No problem to take pictures", and then winking to me. So if you want a picture, even though the system forbides you, just pay and take. I can't accept that and I just don't pay - and off course don't take the picture - as I think that if I do so I'm putting more coal on this engine. I understand though that these people are struggling to survive, they are selling their dinner to buy their lunch, but still I can't stand myself doing things I think are wrong, anyway just to give my impressions...

Continuing along the philosophical angle a little more...

Personally I think a combination of these factors contributed to the more prevalent cheating in India than in the US..

1) Opportunity
Pretty obvious I think. If there is nothing to tempt, nobody gets tempted. People in India knew Scoretop, most
in the US didn't...Opportunity is a universal temptation.

2) Chances of getting away with it
How will they ever know? India am so far away from it anyway...Again, nothing regional about this reason. If you think you can get away with it, you are more likely to cheat.

3) Cultural thing
This one's getting beaten to death too...But this is indeed true. Ethics evolve with economic development. It's kinda hard to be honest/good/righteous when things aren't really that great. The Indian education system also doesn't take much corrective action against cheating...


Now, I also think cheating against a entity or a unknown individual is much easier than cheating against a known person. I don't think any of the said cheaters consciously thought they were putting the rest of the applicants at a disadvantage by cheating. They were cheating against a system (GMAC).

An loose analogy could be cheating on your taxes. Quite a few people pay only because if they don't the IRS is gonna come after them. If somebody can assure me that I will not be caught, I may very well be tempted to cheat..And if I don't like the Govt policies, I can even rationalize the cheating...But if somebody else
can show me that by not paying taxes, I am actually negatively impacting a social welfare program which benefits
my handicapped neighbor, I would probably never cheat.

Given my thoughts, I feel 'rage' is a extreme reaction to the scandal. 'Feeling cheated' also sounds like a bit too much of self pity...Frustration and a bit of helplessness is what I think is appropriate. What we need is a little bit of education in Asia on how this cheating is negatively impacting scores of real people, and I think half the problem is solved...

On a more silly side note, Americans tend to cheat on their spouses more than Asians do...I think it's just the
opportunity and culture thing...Indian's in the US are of course more adulterous than their desi brethren back home..

Kwan, you must be having the time of your life in Egypt ...It's so damn historic and I can see myself being totally inspired after a visit there...too bad we will not be able to see the pics on Facebook

I understand why you wouldn't pay the guards...I personally might have paid. If the no photography rule is a 'nonsense rule', and there is no harm to anyone, and if there is a kodak moment, then I would pay. .It's one of those things where you gotta live in the system...These guys don't get paid much anyway. Not fair at all and it would frustrate me a lot too. But the excessively high costs of transport and hotels in tourist destinations irritates me a lot more..(excuse the digression)

Can we find more passages like this? I find this hilarious, and disturbing.

Well, it's completely unrelated.... but I'm always intrigued by the really oddball comments people leave on businessweek stories. The number of people who write something like "Hi. I want MBA. Please send me documents." baffles me.

Here's a similar one: "Saad Zaki Jul 7, 2008 7:39 AM GMT Dear Sir / Madam, Would you please to get business courses. I am low income and I wish to learn about business managment. Thank you, Saad " ... from a story on MBA salaries. I'm always baffled by these - who do they think they are communicating with on the other end????? What does "get business courses" mean?

Seems like someone from India/Pakistan/Bangladesh. When in india, I used to know more than few people who would write this without embarassment and now that I have been in U.S. for 5 years, I can relate to you. But there is a big information gap here, Rhyme. This here is majority of India, and everything else that you hear about Indians and IT and Indians scoring high in GMAT is minority, real minority.


These are people who have developed dreams in today's "India shining" but their foundations are weak. They come from lower middle class with no access to anyone who has any idea about higher education but get access to internet and try to find there way out. They try all they can, and perhaps this person here wrote this with a lot of hope that someone would respond with a post and invite him to get admission to B-School.

I can appreciate the views from both the sides.

It becomes easier to appreciate the predicament of this guy if we consider the fact that this guy has never studied in English medium ( I studied in vernacular medium till 12th, so I can relate to this person), probably has never spoken in English; it is a totally foreign language to him. Actually, I give him some credit that he is surfing the BW ( most probably he has landed there from some story in any Indian site, which linked to the BW article).This is not unusual from a person coming from low income family ( here we are talking abt south asian low income, which is really "low", and since it is a low inocme family so probably this is the person who has attained the highest education in the family) to get baffled by this HUGE salary figures and at least give it a try to communicate to anyine who belong and show him the way.

Discussing actual GMAT questions seemed to be quite common back in 2002. Take a look at this:

https://forums.businessweek.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?sr=y&msg=37602.1&nav=messages&webtag=bw-bschools

Does that mean all b-week users will have their scores revoked?

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This is an interesting case. A friend of mine who is going to a top school (class of 2010) recently (I think today) received an email from GMAC. I don't have the email but from talking to him the email says GMAC got my friend's contact from the database it retrieved from scoretop. It also seems that GMAC is going after people who posts live questions on the website first and no word on what GMAC will do with those who did not post questions. Anyone else receive or know someone who receive the email?

BCC145,

Interesting. Do keep us updated.

The email was mentioned on BW but someone posted the notice about not sharing the info in the email so thus no one is talking about it.

That IS interesting. I must admit I thought GMAC was blowing smoke.... color me wrong! Please keep us updated.

edit: is it chicago?

wow. look what i missed.

welcome back Praet, we missed you

Don't be so sure quite yet.