Admissions Essay Plagiarism - 工管

近期有些學校開始採用電子系統(Turnitin)
來檢查申請者在申請論文上的的剽竊行為
而被檢查到有剽竊行為的申請者通通收到了學校的拒絕信

即使只是"借用"了學校網站上對於該校特色的說明
像是 "exceptional academic preparation, a cooperative and congenial
student culture, and access to athriving business community.
這麼簡單 大家都可能會用到的句子
只要放上essay
照樣會被系統檢測出來
被視作剽竊行為

相信各位版友都具有正直善良的人格
也都盡最大的努力去申請自己理想中的學校
別讓自己的一失足成為申請MBA路上的遺恨

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以下原文分享

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-plagiarism-20120129,0,2954802.story

When college applicants plagiarize, Turnitin can spot them

UCLA's Anderson School of Management and Stanford University are among more
than 100 colleges using Turnitin's database to detect plagiarism in
application essays.

By Larry Gordon, Los Angeles Times
January 29, 2012, 5:34 p.m.



The student's admissions essay for Boston University's MBA program was about
persevering in the business world. "I have worked for organizations in which
the culture has been open and nurturing, and for others that have been
elitist. In the latter case, arrogance becomes pervasive, straining external
partnerships."

Another applicant's essay for UCLA's Anderson School of Management was about
his father. He "worked for organizations in which the culture has been open
and nurturing, and for others that have been elitist. In the latter case,
arrogance becomes pervasive, straining external partnerships."

Sound familiar? The Boston University student's essay was written in 2003 and
had been posted at businessweek.com. The UCLA applicant was rejected this
year — for plagiarism.

The detection of such wholesale cheating in college applications is on the
rise due to the use of Turnitin for Admissions, an anti-plagiarism database
service that compares student essays to an immense archive of other writings.
Around the country, more than 100 colleges and universities have adopted it,
mainly in graduate divisions, although Stanford University is among the dozen
schools starting to use it for freshman applicants this year.

That growth highlights the search for authenticity in college admissions at a
time when the Internet offers huge amounts of tempting free material,
increasing numbers of private coaches sell admissions advice, and online
companies peddle pre-written essays. In addition, the larger numbers of
applications from overseas have raised concerns about cheating that may be
difficult for U.S. schools to discover unaided.

"The more we can nip unethical behavior in the bud, the better," said Andrew
Ainslie, a senior associate dean at UCLA Anderson. "It seems to us nobody
ought to be able to buy their way into a business school."

In the school's first review of essays from potential MBA candidates this
year, Turnitin found significant plagiarism — beyond borrowing a phrase here
and there — in a dozen of the 870 applications, Ainslie said. All 12 were
rejected.

Turnitin — as in, "turn it in" — began in the 1990s and became a popular
tool at high schools and colleges to help detect copying in academic term
papers and research by scanning for similarities in phrases from among
billions of Web pages, books and periodicals.

Two years ago, the Oakland-based firm developed a service for admissions
decisions, allowing large numbers of essays to be reviewed quickly and
creating a database of students' essays. The service shows sections of essays
next to the possible source and calculates a percentage of possibly copied
material. It is left up to schools to determine whether the plagiarism was
minor, accidental or serious enough to reject the applicant.

"If you are a very selective institution, or a very prestigious institution,
and you have a huge number of people vying for just a couple of slots,
admissions people want to make sure they have all the information to make the
fair decision," said Jeff Lorton, Turnitin for Admissions' product and
business development manager.

Internal testing of the database, using past essays, showed plagiarism
ranging from about 3% to 20% of applicants, Lorton said.

Colleges want "to be proactive in discouraging dishonesty," said Richard
Shaw, Stanford's dean of undergraduate admission and financial aid.

So Stanford will test Turnitin on the 7% or so of its 36,000 applicants who
make it past other hurdles to be offered admissions, Shaw said. If plagiarism
is detected, students will be allowed to respond but probably will face
revocation.

Other schools are skeptical about using Turnitin on prospective freshmen,
especially since the company charges large campuses several thousands of
dollars a year. Rather, plagiarists can be discovered when admissions
officers notice mismatches between strong application essays and weak grades,
interviews and SAT or ACT writing samples, said David Hawkins, public policy
and research director of the National Assn. for College Admission Counseling.
Schools also fear wasting time on false positives triggered by cliches and
platitudes, he said.

And experts say it can be easy to tell when several applicants repeat the
same material or, more glaring, when they don't change electronic typefaces
from their sources.

Turnitin's freshman screening could rise sharply, however, if the service is
adopted by Common Application, the online service used by 456 college
admissions offices. Rob Killion, Common Application executive director, said
there is "a very real chance" it will add Turnitin in 2013.

Among current Turnitin for Admissions users are some graduate schools at
Johns Hopkins, Brandeis, Northeastern and Iowa State. They pay annual fees
that start at $1,500 and rise depending on volume, averaging about a dollar
per application, Lorton said. About half the schools explicitly tell
applicants about the detection while others warn more vaguely.

Before adding the tool, staffers at Penn State's Smeal College of Business
two years ago discovered 29 essays about "principled leadership" that
contained material lifted from the Web, said Carrie Marcinkevage, the MBA
program's managing director. Except for a few borderline cases, those
graduate school applications were denied.

Since then, Turnitin has helped find plagiarism rates of between 3% and 5%,
Marcinkevage said, adding that the technology is worthwhile since it "covers
a lot more ground" than humans can.

Dominican University of California, in San Rafael, recently began using
Turnitin in graduate programs. Applicants sometimes "resort to whatever means
possible to get an edge. It's unfortunate, but I think it's human nature,"
graduate admissions director Larry Schwartz said.

A few suspicious reports are being investigated and most suspected
plagiarists will be given "the benefit of the doubt" and a chance to submit a
second essay for scrutiny, Schwartz said.

At UCLA Anderson, one recent applicant didn't search far for essay material.
He stole verbatim from the school's website in citing "exceptional academic
preparation, a cooperative and congenial student culture, and access to a
thriving business community."

If plagiarists like that are denied admissions, future business leaders may
include fewer unethical careerists, said UCLA Anderson's Ainslie. "If they
are going to do that," he said, "they are going to do it in every aspect of
their lives."

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