the_sheath

I think it means the applicant was going to send the department poop from Hell.

On the one hand, as an envious person myself, I can sympathize, especially on the romantic front. On the other hand, you're making this comment as a person who got accepted to every program she applied to on a forum where many/most people are freaking out over the possibility of getting the exact opposite result (or close to it). Does your life or your preception of it really suck so much?

I would, but Harry Potter gets more acceptance letters than anyone, and he didn't even apply.

I would, but Harry Potter gets more acceptance letters than anyone, and he didn't even apply.

I would, but Harry Potter gets more acceptance letters than anyone, and he didn't even apply.

Suggestions:
 
"I regret to inform you that..."
 
"There were several competitive offers, and I must decline appealing candidates..."
 
"It's not you, it's me..."
 
"I hope we can still be friends"
 
How much sarcasm could you pack in there without burning any bridges that you aren't looking to burn?

Well actually...
 

On the one hand, as an envious person myself, I can sympathize, especially on the romantic front. On the other hand, you're making this comment as a person who got accepted to every program she applied to on a forum where many/most people are freaking out over the possibility of getting the exact opposite result (or close to it). Does your life or your preception of it really suck so much?

Well actually...
 

Chocolate! CHOCOLAAAAAAAAATE!

I would, but Harry Potter gets more acceptance letters than anyone, and he didn't even apply.

It would be like Three's Company, but with schools instead of women

It would be like Three's Company, but with schools instead of women

Chocolate! CHOCOLAAAAAAAAATE!

Chocolate! CHOCOLAAAAAAAAATE!

UUUUUUGGGHHHH MY PARENTS.
 
SO INCONSIDERATE AND ACT LIKE THEY KNOW EXACTLY HOW CERTAIN THINGS WORK BUT THEY DON'T AND IT FRUSTRATES ME TO NO END.

UUUUUUGGGHHHH MY PARENTS.
 
SO INCONSIDERATE AND ACT LIKE THEY KNOW EXACTLY HOW CERTAIN THINGS WORK BUT THEY DON'T AND IT FRUSTRATES ME TO NO END.

Okay, so personally, I thought the cheat on the Kobayashi Maru was actually really cool.
 
And while Kirk failed to learn the lesson the test was designed to impart, I think it was still a pretty good learning experience for everyone else. There are plenty or seemingly no-win situations that have a solution, and ignoring those solutions or going through the test in the same exact way that everyone else does seems to be the weaker choice. And if I wanted someone on my team, I'd take the guy who dared to think outside of the box.
 
I mean, yeah, within the framework of the test, cheating is unethical, and he very clearly "failed" the test. And it is absolutely important to know how to deal with failure. But I'd still commend him on his solution.

Suppose there was a computerized military training simulation that was essentially designed to be a no-win scenario. Let's say, in this case, it's a rescue mission in which, due to the programming implemented, any attempts at rescuing the stranded party are met with guaranteed failure. I would say "cheating" in the form of hacking into the programming to allow the situation to be winnable is not inherently wrong. In fact, I was given to understand that approaching a problem differently than how we're taught to do it is a large part of what many of us would be doing at some point.
 
Suppose, in a another situation, you were going into a field in which espionage and information gathering was key. Suppose you were taking a test to qualify for that field, and you are explicitly that getting caught cheating is an offense punishable by expulsion from the test. However, it becomes clear that the test is also designed to be impossible to complete with the knowledge level you are expected to have at that point, and that the only way to succeed is to cheat. In fact, the unspoken purpose of the exam is to test the test-takers' skills in cheating--two fake test-takers are planted in the room, but they have all the answers, and the real test-takers' task is to extract that information without being spotted. I.e.the thing being tested is not their ability to complete the exam, but their ability to stealthily gather some target information.
 
Or maybe we can take a page from that one thing that actually happened in that one class in UCLA where cheating was actually encouraged.
 
There are probably a lot of situations in which "cheating" isn't wrong, or at least falls into a gray area. It's not that hard to imagine (I mean come on, imagination is kinda part of our schtick).
 
Back to the original situation. From what I think is going on, your professor told you to study 3 chapters for the test, and the they put questions from a 4th chapter on the test, and you realize this during the test. Is it wrong / unethical to copy off a friend who knows the answer? Probably, yeah. Is your professor a dick for not telling you to study that fourth chapter? Probably. But I mean, it sounds like you knew that the questions were from another chapter when you first saw them, so I'm guessing you covered that section already in class but didn't study it. That's on you--you're responsible for material you already covered. Though if the class hadn't gotten to that material at all, it's a little greyer there.
 
But honestly, OP, get over yourself. You talk about professor "oppression" and cheating as "justice", but in the end, what you're doing only benefits you. If you really cared about "justice", your solution would benefit everyone taking the test. Like complaining to the professor to have the questions not count toward the grade. What you're suggesting isn't just immoral, it's petty and selfish. It's clearly about you, your grade, your GPA, and what you think you're entitled to.

Suppose there was a computerized military training simulation that was essentially designed to be a no-win scenario. Let's say, in this case, it's a rescue mission in which, due to the programming implemented, any attempts at rescuing the stranded party are met with guaranteed failure. I would say "cheating" in the form of hacking into the programming to allow the situation to be winnable is not inherently wrong. In fact, I was given to understand that approaching a problem differently than how we're taught to do it is a large part of what many of us would be doing at some point.
 
Suppose, in a another situation, you were going into a field in which espionage and information gathering was key. Suppose you were taking a test to qualify for that field, and you are explicitly that getting caught cheating is an offense punishable by expulsion from the test. However, it becomes clear that the test is also designed to be impossible to complete with the knowledge level you are expected to have at that point, and that the only way to succeed is to cheat. In fact, the unspoken purpose of the exam is to test the test-takers' skills in cheating--two fake test-takers are planted in the room, but they have all the answers, and the real test-takers' task is to extract that information without being spotted. I.e.the thing being tested is not their ability to complete the exam, but their ability to stealthily gather some target information.
 
Or maybe we can take a page from that one thing that actually happened in that one class in UCLA where cheating was actually encouraged.
 
There are probably a lot of situations in which "cheating" isn't wrong, or at least falls into a gray area. It's not that hard to imagine (I mean come on, imagination is kinda part of our schtick).
 
Back to the original situation. From what I think is going on, your professor told you to study 3 chapters for the test, and the they put questions from a 4th chapter on the test, and you realize this during the test. Is it wrong / unethical to copy off a friend who knows the answer? Probably, yeah. Is your professor a dick for not telling you to study that fourth chapter? Probably. But I mean, it sounds like you knew that the questions were from another chapter when you first saw them, so I'm guessing you covered that section already in class but didn't study it. That's on you--you're responsible for material you already covered. Though if the class hadn't gotten to that material at all, it's a little greyer there.
 
But honestly, OP, get over yourself. You talk about professor "oppression" and cheating as "justice", but in the end, what you're doing only benefits you. If you really cared about "justice", your solution would benefit everyone taking the test. Like complaining to the professor to have the questions not count toward the grade. What you're suggesting isn't just immoral, it's petty and selfish. It's clearly about you, your grade, your GPA, and what you think you're entitled to.

@the_sheath: Hahaha, Kobayashi Maru is a great example of what I meant But I was also thinking something more simpler where my desire for academic honesty/ethics is overwhelmed by some other desire. For example, I receive a threat that if I do not help someone cheat in a test, they would kill someone important to me, etc. 
 
Basically, I think that in the OP's scenario, there are plenty of ways to achieve a fair result for everyone without cheating and in fact, cheating would only make the unfairness even worse!

Suppose there was a computerized military training simulation that was essentially designed to be a no-win scenario. Let's say, in this case, it's a rescue mission in which, due to the programming implemented, any attempts at rescuing the stranded party are met with guaranteed failure. I would say "cheating" in the form of hacking into the programming to allow the situation to be winnable is not inherently wrong. In fact, I was given to understand that approaching a problem differently than how we're taught to do it is a large part of what many of us would be doing at some point.
 
Suppose, in a another situation, you were going into a field in which espionage and information gathering was key. Suppose you were taking a test to qualify for that field, and you are explicitly that getting caught cheating is an offense punishable by expulsion from the test. However, it becomes clear that the test is also designed to be impossible to complete with the knowledge level you are expected to have at that point, and that the only way to succeed is to cheat. In fact, the unspoken purpose of the exam is to test the test-takers' skills in cheating--two fake test-takers are planted in the room, but they have all the answers, and the real test-takers' task is to extract that information without being spotted. I.e.the thing being tested is not their ability to complete the exam, but their ability to stealthily gather some target information.
 
Or maybe we can take a page from that one thing that actually happened in that one class in UCLA where cheating was actually encouraged.
 
There are probably a lot of situations in which "cheating" isn't wrong, or at least falls into a gray area. It's not that hard to imagine (I mean come on, imagination is kinda part of our schtick).
 
Back to the original situation. From what I think is going on, your professor told you to study 3 chapters for the test, and the they put questions from a 4th chapter on the test, and you realize this during the test. Is it wrong / unethical to copy off a friend who knows the answer? Probably, yeah. Is your professor a dick for not telling you to study that fourth chapter? Probably. But I mean, it sounds like you knew that the questions were from another chapter when you first saw them, so I'm guessing you covered that section already in class but didn't study it. That's on you--you're responsible for material you already covered. Though if the class hadn't gotten to that material at all, it's a little greyer there.
 
But honestly, OP, get over yourself. You talk about professor "oppression" and cheating as "justice", but in the end, what you're doing only benefits you. If you really cared about "justice", your solution would benefit everyone taking the test. Like complaining to the professor to have the questions not count toward the grade. What you're suggesting isn't just immoral, it's petty and selfish. It's clearly about you, your grade, your GPA, and what you think you're entitled to.

Suppose there was a computerized military training simulation that was essentially designed to be a no-win scenario. Let's say, in this case, it's a rescue mission in which, due to the programming implemented, any attempts at rescuing the stranded party are met with guaranteed failure. I would say "cheating" in the form of hacking into the programming to allow the situation to be winnable is not inherently wrong. In fact, I was given to understand that approaching a problem differently than how we're taught to do it is a large part of what many of us would be doing at some point.
 
Suppose, in a another situation, you were going into a field in which espionage and information gathering was key. Suppose you were taking a test to qualify for that field, and you are explicitly that getting caught cheating is an offense punishable by expulsion from the test. However, it becomes clear that the test is also designed to be impossible to complete with the knowledge level you are expected to have at that point, and that the only way to succeed is to cheat. In fact, the unspoken purpose of the exam is to test the test-takers' skills in cheating--two fake test-takers are planted in the room, but they have all the answers, and the real test-takers' task is to extract that information without being spotted. I.e.the thing being tested is not their ability to complete the exam, but their ability to stealthily gather some target information.
 
Or maybe we can take a page from that one thing that actually happened in that one class in UCLA where cheating was actually encouraged.
 
There are probably a lot of situations in which "cheating" isn't wrong, or at least falls into a gray area. It's not that hard to imagine (I mean come on, imagination is kinda part of our schtick).
 
Back to the original situation. From what I think is going on, your professor told you to study 3 chapters for the test, and the they put questions from a 4th chapter on the test, and you realize this during the test. Is it wrong / unethical to copy off a friend who knows the answer? Probably, yeah. Is your professor a dick for not telling you to study that fourth chapter? Probably. But I mean, it sounds like you knew that the questions were from another chapter when you first saw them, so I'm guessing you covered that section already in class but didn't study it. That's on you--you're responsible for material you already covered. Though if the class hadn't gotten to that material at all, it's a little greyer there.
 
But honestly, OP, get over yourself. You talk about professor "oppression" and cheating as "justice", but in the end, what you're doing only benefits you. If you really cared about "justice", your solution would benefit everyone taking the test. Like complaining to the professor to have the questions not count toward the grade. What you're suggesting isn't just immoral, it's petty and selfish. It's clearly about you, your grade, your GPA, and what you think you're entitled to.

Suppose there was a computerized military training simulation that was essentially designed to be a no-win scenario. Let's say, in this case, it's a rescue mission in which, due to the programming implemented, any attempts at rescuing the stranded party are met with guaranteed failure. I would say "cheating" in the form of hacking into the programming to allow the situation to be winnable is not inherently wrong. In fact, I was given to understand that approaching a problem differently than how we're taught to do it is a large part of what many of us would be doing at some point.
 
Suppose, in a another situation, you were going into a field in which espionage and information gathering was key. Suppose you were taking a test to qualify for that field, and you are explicitly that getting caught cheating is an offense punishable by expulsion from the test. However, it becomes clear that the test is also designed to be impossible to complete with the knowledge level you are expected to have at that point, and that the only way to succeed is to cheat. In fact, the unspoken purpose of the exam is to test the test-takers' skills in cheating--two fake test-takers are planted in the room, but they have all the answers, and the real test-takers' task is to extract that information without being spotted. I.e.the thing being tested is not their ability to complete the exam, but their ability to stealthily gather some target information.
 
Or maybe we can take a page from that one thing that actually happened in that one class in UCLA where cheating was actually encouraged.
 
There are probably a lot of situations in which "cheating" isn't wrong, or at least falls into a gray area. It's not that hard to imagine (I mean come on, imagination is kinda part of our schtick).
 
Back to the original situation. From what I think is going on, your professor told you to study 3 chapters for the test, and the they put questions from a 4th chapter on the test, and you realize this during the test. Is it wrong / unethical to copy off a friend who knows the answer? Probably, yeah. Is your professor a dick for not telling you to study that fourth chapter? Probably. But I mean, it sounds like you knew that the questions were from another chapter when you first saw them, so I'm guessing you covered that section already in class but didn't study it. That's on you--you're responsible for material you already covered. Though if the class hadn't gotten to that material at all, it's a little greyer there.
 
But honestly, OP, get over yourself. You talk about professor "oppression" and cheating as "justice", but in the end, what you're doing only benefits you. If you really cared about "justice", your solution would benefit everyone taking the test. Like complaining to the professor to have the questions not count toward the grade. What you're suggesting isn't just immoral, it's petty and selfish. It's clearly about you, your grade, your GPA, and what you think you're entitled to.

Suppose there was a computerized military training simulation that was essentially designed to be a no-win scenario. Let's say, in this case, it's a rescue mission in which, due to the programming implemented, any attempts at rescuing the stranded party are met with guaranteed failure. I would say "cheating" in the form of hacking into the programming to allow the situation to be winnable is not inherently wrong. In fact, I was given to understand that approaching a problem differently than how we're taught to do it is a large part of what many of us would be doing at some point.
 
Suppose, in a another situation, you were going into a field in which espionage and information gathering was key. Suppose you were taking a test to qualify for that field, and you are explicitly that getting caught cheating is an offense punishable by expulsion from the test. However, it becomes clear that the test is also designed to be impossible to complete with the knowledge level you are expected to have at that point, and that the only way to succeed is to cheat. In fact, the unspoken purpose of the exam is to test the test-takers' skills in cheating--two fake test-takers are planted in the room, but they have all the answers, and the real test-takers' task is to extract that information without being spotted. I.e.the thing being tested is not their ability to complete the exam, but their ability to stealthily gather some target information.
 
Or maybe we can take a page from that one thing that actually happened in that one class in UCLA where cheating was actually encouraged.
 
There are probably a lot of situations in which "cheating" isn't wrong, or at least falls into a gray area. It's not that hard to imagine (I mean come on, imagination is kinda part of our schtick).
 
Back to the original situation. From what I think is going on, your professor told you to study 3 chapters for the test, and the they put questions from a 4th chapter on the test, and you realize this during the test. Is it wrong / unethical to copy off a friend who knows the answer? Probably, yeah. Is your professor a dick for not telling you to study that fourth chapter? Probably. But I mean, it sounds like you knew that the questions were from another chapter when you first saw them, so I'm guessing you covered that section already in class but didn't study it. That's on you--you're responsible for material you already covered. Though if the class hadn't gotten to that material at all, it's a little greyer there.
 
But honestly, OP, get over yourself. You talk about professor "oppression" and cheating as "justice", but in the end, what you're doing only benefits you. If you really cared about "justice", your solution would benefit everyone taking the test. Like complaining to the professor to have the questions not count toward the grade. What you're suggesting isn't just immoral, it's petty and selfish. It's clearly about you, your grade, your GPA, and what you think you're entitled to.