hashslinger

Yes. And when you make students meet with you in person to discuss grades, they're usually less likely to "go off" or argue with you anyway. Most people do not like to argue with their teachers in person. I did have one guy who went off on me a long, long time ago when I first started teaching, and it was after 24 hours had already passed. (He accused me, among other things, of keeping him out of medical school--apparently the B- he got on a paper had a chilling effect on his potential to make it in the medical field.) But by and large students tend to get more upset over email where they feel more empowered to say things that they wouldn't otherwise. That's why I remind my students constantly that I don't discuss grades over email (and I use FERPA as my excuse here).

I know a lot of people who implement the "24 hour rule." If it works for someone, then more power to them. But I'm personally not a huge fan of it. There's what you're saying and then what they're hearing. You're saying that they need to cool down for 24 hours (for their protection more than anything); they're hearing that they did terrible on this test or exam--so badly that they might not be able to control themselves. They're also hearing that YOU are the one who they will obviously be angry with because you have that kind of power. They're hearing that you're the antagonist, not the impartial person who simply evaluations their work in an impersonal, detached way. When I give back papers, I tell the students that there were "many wonderful papers" but that, yes, some of them needed some work. (Telling the students that some of them were good lets the others know that it IS possible to get a good grade and that other people in the class know what they're doing). Then we take a little time to go over the issues. Then, before I pass back papers, I remind them that I'm available in office hours and that they should feel free to bring their papers by to chat. I also tell them that they can email me for an appointment time if they can't make my office hours, and then I remind them that I don't discuss grades over email. I tell them once more that if they don't understand my comments, or if anything is unclear, that they should not hesitate to come see me. Surprisingly this works; I have had very few students who blew up at me or who wrote long screedy emails. Only one in the last 5 years, I think. (And I teach somewhere between 40 and 80 students a semester.) I just think that sometimes when you institute a rule like "no talking to me for 24 hours!" it kind of makes you look defensive, and it seems to tell them that you're expecting the worst of them. I also wouldn't use the word "dispute" when talking about grades. Because there's nothing to dispute. There's your grade, and their understanding of the rationale for that grade. The point of any kind of after-the-fact conference would be to gain a better understanding of how the paper or exam went wrong and how it might be improved. Basically, it's a feedback conference. But if it works for you, then by all means do it. I just wanted to offer a slightly different perspective.

You need to talk to your professors and your DGS as soon as possible. One B sounds like bad luck; two B's sound like a problem; three could mean that they're trying to get rid of you. But only you can figure this out for sure. The general understanding is that a B is not a good grade if you're in graduate English coursework, but this can vary from professor to professor. I had a professor one time who relished giving "honest" grades, but she was very much the exception. Since you're only in your first year, you might be able to turn this around. But you absolutely must talk to the people in charge to find out what you need to do. Getting into a top 20 program is tough for people in the most generous circumstances. I would recommend focusing your grad school efforts on schools outside the top 20.

Have to agree with klondike and TakeruK. I don't think it's necessarily weird or bad that quizzes/participation are worth 30%; it's weird that 30% of the student's grade is tied to the practice of self-evaluation. Now his question of "were the quizzes graded?" makes much more sense.

This is absolutely true for some universities--namely mine, which is a huge research institution. Even in a "teaching heavy" discipline, we have hired several people in the last few years who have maybe one semester of experience teaching their own class. Teaching portfolios were never requested. Evaluations were never requested. (Most of the people at my institution don't really think evaluations say anything about someone's teaching.) Research trumped all. Ironically, those of us who graduate from this same institution have A LOT of teaching experience--by the end of our second year, I'd say we have more teaching experience--in terms of number and diversity of classes taught--than most of the people we hire. We typically get jobs anywhere from SLACs to R1s to R2s and very teaching oriented colleges to community colleges. Most of the time we get jobs at places where teaching is emphasized, and often times teaching experience is instrumental to getting these jobs. Even so, research program matters a great deal. In this day and age of a cutthroat job market, even R2 schools and SLACs won't hire someone if they haven't published. So ... does teaching matter? Yes and no. Depends on the hiring situation. I read somewhere--and I believe that this is true--that quantity of teaching matters less than the diversity of courses taught. It's better to have taught only four classes if those four classes were totally different and requiring different syllabi than to teach 12 sections of freshman comp. I've also heard that there's a "law of diminishing returns" when it comes to teaching. Teaching more and more and more doesn't really help you all that much on the job market. After a certain point it just doesn't matter or impress. No one cares that you taught yourself down to the nub. In fact (and I've experienced this myself) teaching too much leads to a kind of fatigue. Your evaluations seem to plateau. Your creativity kind of lags. Teaching wears you out and takes time away from your research. So ... going to a school where you teach 2/2 for six years in a row is not necessarily going to translate to a big advantage on the teaching-oriented job market. In an ideal world, you should try to go to a program that offers meaningful teaching experiences while giving you "time off" to finish a dissertation.

The quizzes were worth 30%, though. That's a significant assignment. Not doing them, in this situation, seems like it would the equivalent of not turning in a major paper or showing up for a final. So that's how I would look at this: the student didn't complete a major course requirement. Changing the weight of participation grade after the fact seems unfair to the students who DID do the quizzes. Even if the percentage breakdown seems to give too much weight to the quizzes over other forms of participation (and I'm not saying it does), it would be unwise to make a major change like that after the class is over.

Well, not to be too flippant, but what did he think the quizzes were for? Your own personal entertainment? He evidently knew they existed. The other students did them, so you know the failure wasn't related to your instructions or syllabus. This sounds like an unfortunate situation, but you can't really do anything at this point. He came to you too late. In your reply to him, i would emphasize that. I would say that he was responsible for his own grade and that the other students had no issues with completing the quizzes on time. It is basically his fault that he wasn't able to follow the instructions--even if there's some disability at play. Having a disability (if that's even what he has, since evidently it's not documented) doesn't excuse his complete inability to accomplish what he needed to accomplish. I know it's hard to believe in this day and age of intense hand-holding, but you're not required to keep after all your students. I too suffer from intense guilt when something like this happens. But it's really not our fault, and there's nothing you or he can do about it at this point. Just give him the grade he earned and move forward.

I think this sums it up quite well. It's really unprofessional to gossip about another TA, even if you know for a fact that they have conducted themselves unethically. It's one thing to ask casually, "What ever happened to Mr. Smith? I haven't seen him lately." It's another thing to roll up and ask about someone's cheating or academic misconduct, especially if you're privy to the information because you were the other TA in the course. At my school, we also aren't allowed to discuss a student's plagiarism case (or its outcome) because of privacy issues. I assume that TAs, as students, are protected under the same rules. Some schools have different protocols when it comes to academic misconduct. At my current school, a TA or professor isn't allowed to give a failing grade for plagiarism or cheating, even for one small assignment--that's for the board to decide. As TakeruK said, you just forward the information to the board and they examine the evidence and make the decision. It's not up to you how or if they're punished. You just present the evidence, no editorializing allowed. At another school I attended, cases of academic misconduct were handled at the discretion of the instructor. You could decide whether or not to fail someone for the assignment or for the course while keeping the decision "in house" and not involving the authorities. Or you could forward their case to the board and fail them at the same time. (This was viewed as a much more extreme measure as board cases left a black mark on the student's transcript.) At that school, it wasn't uncommon for people to just handle academic misconduct on their own--either by failing a student, failing their assignment, or forcing them to do the assignment over again. In any case, academic misconduct is between a student (or, in this case, a TA) and the professor and whatever authority. No other TAs need to get involved unless they have new information.

It's not, but one can't really draw any conclusions based on his presence. We typically don't punish people publicly in academia, and often times "first time" offenders get off with no more than a warning. If Mr. Smith has been mum about it, and his adviser hasn't said anything, then you can't know if he's been sanctioned. His presence in the department might indeed indicate that the matter was swept under the rug. Or it could indicate that the professor and the chair were satisfied with giving him a warning. Or it could indicate something else, that there wasn't enough evidence or something, or there was enough doubt, or there was a technicality. (At my university, you can only punish someone for academic misconduct if you can prove before a judicial committee that they knowingly intended to commit an act of fraud. There's a reason why only the most obvious and glaring plagiarism cases get forwarded.) Or perhaps he's being monitored really closely right now. I have friends who got into some trouble with their teaching their first year; they didn't get fired but the supervising professor watched them very closely, sitting in on their classes and putting them through intense evaluations. My point is that you can't really draw any conclusions based on the fact that he's still there and teaching. Moreover, there's privacy to think of. Mr. Smith is still entitled to his privacy, even if he did something wrong. Beyond all that, I'm not sure what the OP would do with the information if they discovered that Mr. Smith hadn't been punished to their liking. I'm also not sure that any TA is in a position to know what constitutes "appropriate punishment" here because we don't have all the information. Why did Mr. Smith do such a thing? Well, maybe he's got a mental illness. Maybe he just carried away in wanting his students to like him. Maybe he is indeed a sociopath who planned the whole thing. It's difficult to say because there didn't seem to be anything "in it" for him. It's not like these instances in K-12 where standardized test scores are tied to a teacher's employment status. I don't mean to make light of the situation--it sounds like it was pretty galling for all involved. But I think the OP needs to just be about their own business. This happened more than a semester ago and there's no way to change the outcome in any real, tangible way. Since the students weren't the ones perpetrating the academic misconduct, their grades won't change. And Mr. Smith's punishment or non-punishment is Mr. Smith's business and not a matter of concern to another TA. The OP needs to worry about their own coursework and their own success in graduate school.

You have no evidence that the professor did something wrong. You say "it seems" the professor "covered it up" in order to protect their own tenure situation and grad student. Where's your proof? Based on the language you're using here, I'd say you're just speculating. You are operating under the assumption that the professor is behaving unethically, and that might not be the case at all. For all you know, he or she has dealt with it with integrity and professionalism. Trust that they know what they're doing. Maybe the TA didn't get punished because he just made an error in judgment; maybe he is being punished and is in a world of shit right now. If I'm going to speculate myself, I'm going to assume that they *have* dealt with it. No one's going to jeopardize their tenure over some stupid grad student. Give the professor the benefit of the doubt and move on. No one likes a snitch; more than that, no one respects a conspiracy theorist. Go with the evidence: professor knows about the cheating; the cheating was stopped. The end. I'm not surprised that Mr. Smith's section ended up with higher grades: the professor could not take those grades away from those students because they didn't do anything wrong. *They* weren't the ones cheating. Just let this alone. Do you really want to be known as the grad student who tried to cost Professor so-and-so his tenure? Or who tried to get Mr. Smith kicked out? ETA: Oh, and if you do go to an authority, you better have more than a hunch. You better have a smoking gun. I wouldn't ever, ever go up against a professor in this kind of situation unless I had really hard evidence.

You're going to have bad days. You're going to have bad days a lot at first, but even after you've been teaching for 5 or 10 years, you're going to have bad days then, too. Just accept them and move on. Related to that, if your students don't like your class or your subject-matter (or even you), don't take it too personally. Remember that you're an "authority" figure in a required class, and that people don't really like authority figures or their "required" courses. (I know that nothing is really "required" in college, but students often perceive general ed classes as a chore.) More importantly, students lose a lot of respect for instructors who seem to take student disinterest really personally. Be open to student feedback (in the form of midterm evaluations) but don't chase after their approval. That just makes you look desperate. Resist the temptation to grade too hard or too easy. Devise a rubric (or borrow one from someone) and stick to it. If it's a choice between being kind and being fair, be fair. Don't lose sight of your own work or the reason you came to grad school. Don't let teaching eat your professional or personal life.

I think this is a good approach. But FWIW, I take a slightly different approach. I, personally, would not ever, ever change a grade I have already given unless I clearly miscalculated or overlooked something or made some obvious and quantifiable mistake. Grades are indeed subjective: I might assign a slightly different grade to a paper based on when I grade in relation to the other papers (before or after I've seen how other students completed the essay, for instance), and to obviate this issue I reconsider grades multiple times before returning the essays. But I do think we need to trust our own professional judgment to some extent and not allow our own standards and grading scale to be "moved" based on the arguments that students might be able to make. I don't think it's necessarily about our egos (although no one likes to be second guessed); for me, it's about trusting my professional judgment so I can guide students toward writing a better next paper. I try to present grading as more a "learning experience": here is my professional judgment of your work, and here is what you can do to write a better paper in the near future. When I write comments, I generally conceptualize them as a list of recommendations rather than justifications. And when students come to see me in conference, I avoid defending my grade and instead present my appraisal of their work as advice for what to avoid or implement in the next paper or next assignment. Just taking this attitude generally works--students come into the conference asking to better "understand" what needed more work and to get advice for the next paper. Sometimes I let students rewrite their papers if they ask or if they clearly didn't understand the assignment. However, I would never change a grade or let students think the door is open for a grade change.

I don't know what field you're in, so I'm not sure that this will be helpful, but I would tell you to approach your first chapter like it's a 20-page seminar paper. In other words, just sit down and write it. Just write it. It's going to be terrible. It's going to be bad. But no one can help you with it when it's still in your head. You have to produce SOMETHING in order to get to the stage where you can actually receive help on it.

Yes, definitely, Depending on the level of the class I'm teaching, I spell that out, Unfortunately, explaining the technical reason for why something might be "awkward" is sometimes just as opaque to the student--they've got a misplaced modifier, the sentence is a run-on, the sentence is a fragment, the parallel structure is off, they're using a colloquial expression, they're not introducing quoted material in a grammatically sound way, etc. Sometimes these specific reasons for awkwardness are just as confusing for students if they don't have a grammar background. So it's still their responsibility to seek out further feedback if it's not clear, or to go to the writing center where they do workshops on avoiding "awkward" writing. I actually do pass out sample sentences from past classes and have us all revise them in class, but oftentimes students have difficulty applying what they learned there to their own papers.

Oh yeah, I totally understand that. By that example, I guess I meant something more along the lines of a student who clearly does not give a crap and does not want to give the class even the bare minimum to get by (and in my class revising somewhat is in the rubric and part of the bare minimum)--not someone who has to go home for the weekend or has a lab report to do for a class in their major. I'm well aware that most of my students are not majoring in my given subject, and at a large state university I'm aware that even the majors are in this to get a degree, not to develop into PhDs. However, I still think it's acceptable to expect students to approach your class with SOME degree of professionalism. To use a facile example--your boss at work doesn't care if you've just taken the job to pay rent or to bide your time before a better position opens up--you still need to come into work and look like you give a crap about being there. Obviously I don't think that our classes are meant to prepare students for the workforce, so my analogy is imperfect. But I still think that some measure of professionalism is important. When students come and tell me that they think my class is a waste of time and that they want to know what the absolute bare minimum is they can do to get by--I'm sorry, but I think it's obnoxious. And it's kind of a dumb thing for them to admit.

Yes, true. But I think that students also need to be aware that seeking help isn't a guarantee to a certain kind of grade, and that the purpose of a draft conference is not to give people a map to getting to an A grade. That's something that's very frustrating about the humanities, and that some students find really irritating--that we can't just tell you what to plug in to get a good grade. We're often looking for really difficult to quantify things, like originality of argument. Those of us who work in the humanities generally know how to recognize and evaluate an argument for its originality, but it's not something we can (or should) map out for our students (and by this I mean tell them exactly what to write or what to argue). Moreover, our purpose in conference isn't to help someone get to a A (though it's nice if they do) but to improve upon some specific things, open up new ways of thinking, etc. Often this frustrates more "grade oriented" students, because they feel that we're not being upfront and honest in conference. I don't get complaints like this anymore (maybe I'm doing something right? probably just inflating the crap out of grades) but I used to get gripes along the line of, "I went to see Hashslinger in conference and still only got a B!" It's like, yeah, our conference helped bring that somewhat-bad paper up to a B--thank God you came in or the grade would have been much worse.

When someone asks you what grade you'd give their draft--it occurs to me that you might turn the question back on them and ask, "What do you mean?" or "Why do you want to know?" Sometimes I find that answering questions with questions (though annoying in every other facet of life) works well when you're dealing with a student who might be trying to challenge you or get you to commit to a certain course of action. Students don't lie very well when put on the spot, and they often don't bother to lie at all. So if someone answers you with, "I want to know if I can just turn it in like this because I've got a lot to do this weekend" vs. "I'm really nervous about this paper and want to know if my writing is any good," you'll know what kind of student you're dealing with, i.e. the earnest/anxious student or the one who makes no bones about the fact that your class is a big waste of time. You can put the fear of God into slacker student (by telling them that their as-is paper will fail) while trying to honestly help the earnest one. And yeah, I have had students admit some pretty egregious foot-in-mouth things to me, like "I chose this book to write about because it was the only one I read," or "I didn't see the movie because I don't have Netflix, I just read the reviews." And bless them for their honesty, but damn.

Yeah, this. And also, if a student gets back comments on a paper that they find confusing or vague (like "awk" or "needs to flow better") they could always just go and ask the instructor for clarification. I try to avoid writing such vague things on my students' papers, but who knows--sometimes constructive criticism is difficult to convey, and with 40 or 50 papers to grade, not every comment is going to be a work of art. I tell all my students to please, please come see me if any of my comments are unclear to them. At some point it's the student's responsibility to seek more feedback or clarification. If you're a student who just stews about your incompetent TA when you've never bothered to go to office hours, then your grade is ultimately your fault.

Well, you've just changed the discussion from what is "ethical" to what is courteous. What is courteous is completely beside the point. "Courtesy" and "fairness" are admirable qualities to cultivate, and we'd all be better off by being kinder; however, I think it is absolutely absurd to tell people to put concern for etiquette and courtesy above their financial security or potential on the job market. That is flat-out naive and, quite frankly, some really terrible advice. Moreover, this isn't about what you can "get away with" (which implies that you're doing something wrong, unethical, or illegal). If you're a person in this position, you haven't gotten away with anything. You still have to go to the first program and ask to be let out of your commitment. They can always say no; they have the power in this situation, not the applicant who's already accepted. All you're doing is just asking. Hardly a mercenary move. If asking to be let out of a contract--a possibility that is written into the Council guidelines--makes someone selfish or reckless, then you've just redefined selfishness. So we're not allowed to talk about situations more broadly or hypothetically now? You can speak only to "what's germane" to any particular post? Or they could have just gone down their waitlist and invited the next person. Which is what my program does. What was that about saying something repeatedly and authoritatively not making it true? This is the root of your assumption that I find very problematic: that these other applicants, who have their "lives in limbo" (I'm not sure what this means--they're still on the waitlist? They've been turned down from the program to which they might have been accepted if someone had just given up their spot sooner?) are somehow being hurt by other mercenary applicants. Here's news for you: as an applicant, you are entitled to nothing. No spot in grad school is "your spot" before you've been accepted, so no one is taking "your spot." You go into the admissions process knowing that your life may be "in limbo" for a while, or that you might get rejected altogether and have no plans for next year. You go in knowing you may very well walk away as empty-handed as you started. So I'm befuddled by your assumption that schools or applicants somehow owe something to one another. Thinking that way is just being entitled, plain and simple. You have a short memory, bro. I said the process was messy and that universities' dysfunction starts at the administrative level (it does). A far cry from "corrupt" and "incompetent." But to answer your question more seriously: I thought I'd work on Wall Street or for the federal government but decided that the university system would allow me to get away with more of my unethical wrangling. Like, you know, telling people to consult the CGS rules and their advisors. Real ballsy stuff like that. Fine, but my point still stands. Going into the adjunct scene with additional debt--debt which you could have avoided if you weren't too squeamish to petition to be let out of a contract--isn't something to take lightly. None of this is to say that I think the OP made a poor choice. However, if the stakes had been higher--a choice between two PhD programs, or between one very mediocre program and one very well-regarded one--then the situation would have best been handled by consulting with the programs themselves rather than making a decision and second-guessing later. That's all I'm saying. And just so we're clear this time: I know that I'm speaking of hypothetical situation that might not be "germane" to this particular person's post.

I'm aware of what the original post said. I actually don't think he or she necessarily made a bad decision, though I think they should have talked it through with professors and advisors before acting. I was simply offering input in case anyone else in the future is faced with the same decision. Perhaps, but the fact remains that programs make offers after April 15, and the Council has a clause governing this exact situation. So it is legal; it is allowed. It is nonsense to get on here and tell people that it is unethical for them to change their minds when there is a procedure that facilitates this very process. Such a thing is NOT against the rules as long as you do it properly. If program-changing does begin to compromise programs, then perhaps the Council will have to revisit that rule and make it so that April 15 is much more binding. But until then, it's not the individual applicant's fault for doing something that is fully within their right to do. Telling someone that their sanctioned behavior is bringing down the whole system is just ridiculous. Moreover, you've got no evidence that this kind of maneuvering is really that widespread, or that it's making the system unworkable. They aren't. Is this question for real? Nope, that's not true. It might not have been the case for the OP, but offers can vary wildly. My program alone makes very different offers to people, ranging from 14k to 28k. I'm guessing that the people on the higher end of that have a lot less worrying when it comes to putting food on the table.

Nowhere did I say that people should *only* care about their material realities. Give me a break. But yeah, seriously, I think it's bizarre that you blame applicants themselves for these problems, especially when administrative dysfunction starts at the highest level of the university system. A bit like blaming the victim, huh? The program in question is actually the one that put the OP in this situation, and again, if making a decision like this after the deadline is so very unethical, then shame on them for even extending the offer. If Program A loses a student to Program B, then they should perhaps blame Program B for not getting its shit together. Or perhaps they should take a long look at their own program for not being able to offer a very attractive funding package. But I don't know too many professors--who, by the way, understand this sort of thing quite well--who would lash out at a young graduate student for honestly worrying about their financial situation. I think it is downright stupid to tell people to forgo a better shot at financial security--especially if that "better shot" means putting food on the table or having less student debt--in order to be "nice" or to avoid inconveniencing other people. Really, we're talking about convenience here--not taking away a spot from someone else, not taking away someone else's fellowship money, not taking a TAship from someone else. We're basically talking about people being uncomfortable because their decision time is coming down to the deadline. And yes, sometimes it comes down to or past the deadline. That was something I fully understood when I applied for programs, so frankly I don't understand it when people complain about not having heard from Program X as if it's the worst thing in the world.

I don't think the student was necessarily unfair in their request either. They could just honestly be saying, "I gave this draft my all; I want to know where my writing skills stand as they are." This question is common among students who just graduated from high school or are used to STEM fields where there's a "right answer." However, it's also possible that the student is trolling. Back when I was a younger teacher I used to have students ask this question. If they got an answer they liked (because I was dumb enough to give it) they wouldn't bother to revise at all, which would defeat the purpose of a composition class that stresses revision. And then I would end up docking their grade for not revising (as "revision" was part of the rubric), and then they would get pissed at me for what they perceived to be my dishonesty. A bad situation for all involved. Now, for the trolly student, I think that ss2player's answer is probably best. "If it came in like this I'd give it an F, because it hasn't been revised."

Yeah, it kind of was the question that was asked. The OP said it felt "unethical" to turn down the first program. Others responded with "it's good you did the ethical thing" or "screw ethics" or something. Really, initiating a process to get a release from a program is NOT unethical as long as one follows the proper procedures, consults with the programs (as well as advisors), and is upfront and transparent in one's dealings. Moreover, I don't understand your contention that this kind thing is the applicant's fault, and that a program's failure to get back to its candidates time can somehow be traced back to applicants acting indecisively. This process is very messy; sometimes it's the program's fault, sometimes it's the university's fault, sometimes it's the applicant's fault. Sometimes funds are caught up in union negotiations. Sometimes people commit to a grad school and then can't go for whatever reason, thereby opening up a spot. Sometimes people "hold out" as long as they can before April 15 for funding reasons--and that's very understandable. But yes, it means that people will be getting off waitlists after April 15. And I'm sorry, but denouncing this attitude as "as long as I get mine!" opportunism is a little naive. When you're talking about the material realities that grad students face in graduate school and beyond--years of living in poverty, the possibility of years adjuncting afterwards--then telling people to worry excessively the possibility of offending program niceties seems very unwise. True, the material realities of grad school do not justify behaving unethically (as in playing programs off each other when you have no intention of attending one of them, or signing on with a school without getting a release from another) ... but worrying about your own financial well-being and long-term career potential is not being a grubby unethical opportunist. And yes, programs understand this. Bottom line is that if you're unsure you should talk to advisors and other professors.

Okay, I just want to point out for the record that asking the program to which you've been accepted for a formal release is *not* unethical. It would be unethical if you signed on with Program B before getting a release from Program A, or just didn't show up to Program A in August. But following the proper procedures and being upfront and transparent is not unethical. Here's more info: https://www.cgsnet.org/ckfinder/userfiles/files/CGS_Resolution.pdf You're not married to a program just because you've signed on. Think, if it was truly unethical to change grad school plans, then programs would not extend offers to anyone after April 15 and such a release procedure would not exist. Yes, it can probably piss off professors and program directors by pulling out at a later date, but at that point you have to weigh the pros and cons. If you're at the very beginning of a grad career and the program you're backing out of isn't a big player, then you'll probably be okay. I do think that programs on some level expect this sort of thing to happen. That's why they keep waitlists into July. I don't think you should stress about this, though. It's just a master's, so it's not really a big deal. (I ended up going to my last choice school for my MA and I loved it.) But in the future you might want to consult your advisors and professors before making a decision like this. Don't let legalistic language on a webpage intimidate you.

Ah, okay. That makes sense. If two students came to me with the complaint that I've given one of them a lower grade for the same answer, then yeah, the student who got the accidental "benefit" point has put himself in a bad spot. I've never had that exact situation, but I have had students who came to me and complain that I let someone else in the class hand in late work or miss an additional day so they should be able to too, etc. And sometimes that is the case, but it usually involves special circumstances. So I tell the complaining student that other students are none of their business and that I'm not at liberty to discuss anyone else's circumstances, end of discussion.