DD paid £130 to get an assignment done for her.

[Piggie90]

DD went away this long weekend and completely ignored her college research project before she went away. Cut a very long story short, she used some of her birthday money (18th) to pay a company (didn't even know they existed) to write a 2500 word project for her.

AIBU to never lend her a penny again? I'm actually fuming.

Sorry, 2:2/ 2:1 borderline.

sassh Really? I will look into that. Thanks

When I did an MA in 2003 my university lecturer asked me to "check" another student's dissertation after I'd submitted my own, and said the other student was willing to pay me. It was barely in English so huge swathes of it did require rewriting. I was very careful not to change the meaning of anything she had tried to say, and it took ages because I was so careful to try to stick as closely to her own words/ideas as poss (basically making spelling/grammar changes only) but I do wonder now how common this practice was/is. I didn't really question it because my supervisor had asked me to do it, but it was a bit borderline given the amount of editing/revisions required and makes me realise the pressure universities are under to pass students, particularly international ones.

@mathanxiety at my uni I only met with my supervisor x3 - she was so stretched she never replied to emails other than a brief "can meet on x day at x time" and I got frustrated as literally every time all she did was go over my introduction! I asked her in ever email if we could go over structure and a few other bits and every time she kept saying "but the intro is the important bit" I felt it was easier for her to feel she was helping if she had something small to focus on in the time limit we were allowed. I can see how any student would be able to fly under the radar - lecturers are pushed to the absolute limit time-wise and universities won't pay for more staff to share the load. Anyone "just getting on with their own work" would be seen as a godsend after the initial discussion about topic was done.

@Rosti there's a lot of that in undergrad too - at my uni over half of my cohort were bilingual.

I write freelance part time and am contacted regularly by people with obvious essay questions...I never take them up and always ask if it's their homework. I would get her to get the assignment back and re write it if possible. How is she coming with the anxiety now? Does she have a sense of having to look over her shoulder?

I'm a prof at a university. She would get kicked out and it would ruin her studies if you informed on her. Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that the university needs to have these sanctions I would not do it to my own daughter, I would simply make her

A) redo the project, even if she's not going to get the chance to submit it
B) withdraw all privileges at home for a month
C) sit down and talk to her about the risks she's running if she gets caught. I have also seen people who used these mills get blackmailed later because once they know you've cheated THEY have the potential to ruin you.

What she had done is tantamount to fraud especially if she is successful. Think of all the ones who will have slogged away and perhaps fail by a whisper. Or those who don't have money to be so corrupt. Your DD needs a hard lesson on what life and achievement is all about. Wouldn't give her another penny in case she does anything similar or even worse again.

I wouldn't be mad. She told you the truth, she used her own money and if she gets caught by college she will suffer consequences. If she doesn't get caught what's the real harm?

I'd say she's unlikely to be caught unless the writer has gone very off topic or done a very poor job. At my university all submissions are marked anonymously so they wouldn't know if it went against her normal style, as they wouldn't know what that would be. Submissions tend not to be marked by the lecturers who actually taught the modules and thus may be marked by people who've never even met her.

Would you be happy if your gp had taken such an initiative and used this method to become qualified. Also what if another student had also used sAMe service. If I was her I would come clean blame as a lapse of judgement due to stress etc etc might get zero but will have to recover the Mark's over next essays

LonelyTiredandLow we were under strict instructions to write the introduction last, after the main body of the thesis had been completed, as only then would we really understand what we were writing about and would have a thesis to expound. We were encouraged to write as we went along (with progress monitored). This involved much laborious ordering, reordering and setting aside of 6x4 cards, with some references contributing to the text and some earmarked for footnotes.

Itssosunny essays were all handed in in my day, and discussed.

I wouldn’t rat her out, but I’d be fucking fuming and wouldn’t give her another penny.

She could get expelled if she is caught.

Have only read half the thread but I just don't understand this. What is the point of paying someone? It's not really your degree then?

I'm about to fail an assignment due tomorrow and I'd still not pay. Not because of some great moral superiority but it's so pointless and empty. Failure is grim but I'd still be failing if I was cheating, just maybe nobody else would know.

The whole point of completing a course is that you achieve stuff from the thoughts generated inside your own head, surely?

I wouldn't be very happy but certainly wouldn't grass my child up. Some of you are horrible!

I don't think people understand how hard it is to actually fail a course either. Lecturers will do everything in their power to get someone to pass, I've known a few to completely rewrite essays for students.

'justloseit' I agree - these essays take hours - sometimes burning the midnight oil to make submission deadlines - if you were taking snatches from other works you couldn't identify your work from the 'stolen text'.
To buy a complete essay will not do your work for you - it would probably have been seen before and you would be ousted for it!
These kids are privileged, they are able to continue to study the subjects they love - and that they hope to form their careers around -to absorb specific knowledge and to qualify their belief in their subject. Publishers, Teachers, Historians - they all go through this process and if they can't make it on their own quest for knowledege and to adapt it into their working life then they should do something else. Anything worth having takes work - a lot of work!!

Whilst I agree wholeheartedly that the university needs to have these sanctions I would not do it to my own daughter

100% agree. I would like to see a parent who would do it to their own child.

I wouldn't be very happy but certainly wouldn't grass my child up. Some of you are horrible!

Oh, yes. Just tell her off and move on. She may have not realised she has done something bad as she is young and inexperienced and because her friends do it and because it's not forbidden. No- one pays fine for writing essays for money.
Talk to her, explain and hopefully she will start working hard on her own essays.

She may have not realised she has done something bad

If she's that stupid she doesn't deserve to even have a place at university. Where is it not forbidden to cheat at your degree?

Or have I missed the fact that you are being sarcastic for some reason itssosunny

CF at the highest level
you are making a mockery of the education system
Your child might be 'cute' but is definitely not educated to the standard of average intelligence - sorry! Your relation i making a judgement on you and your family
The regrets will all be with them x

Thanks everyone.

She is 18 and in college by the way but has her place at uni for September. Had a massive talk with her, she is quite sensitive and did get upset and say she regretted it before I piled on her too, she said the way she felt was enough of a lesson and she will preplan better and should have done it before she went away but then she was stressing and didn't want her 18th to be ruined because of that so ended up paying. She seems to accept that I don't give her any money from now. People saying I shouldn't have anyway, she literally just had her 18th birthday, so I have to disagree there, as a child, of course I shouldn't have not given her a penny.

She has a 5 hour a week job but that literally only pays for her car.

Anyway, about the assignment, I won't tell the college on her but I've encouraged her to come clean and hope they understand because you are usually a very good student, she has said she would really prefer to just learn from this experience and never do anything like it again. So I don't know what else to say now.

Thanks very much all.

She might be 18 but she's living in your house so should follow your rules. And how you deal with this depends on how you view cheating.
If you do nothing you're sending her the message that it's ok to cheat. She might be lucky and get away with it this time (tho it's unlikely that she's been given a unique essay, more likely it's been sold to several people and thus more likely to be picked up).
You're in a bit of a hard place. If you inform on her then all her assignments for this subject will be void. And it's likely other subjects with the same exam board could be discredited. It will also go on her record and thus impact on HE.
I suggest a strong talk. Tell her you are seriously considering informing her college and you don't hold with cheating (or lying by pretending the work is hers) but that you know this will impact on her future prospects.
Ground her. Stop any money you pay her. Start checking on the work she has to do, check when she's doing it and look at the final product.
Tell her you can't trust her so this is how it's going to be until she finishes her course.

It is a big problem everywhere in higher ed and has been for years - in the old days students just bought essays from other students.

It isn't just that students who do this don't earn the degree. It is that they are demonstrating a complete lack of integrity. Lots of jobs require you to be able to rely on the word of the person doing them - and not just surgeons or nurses or whatever. Quality control/quality assurance is vital in loads of industries and often comes down to trusting that someone did what they said they did. Someone who buys their essays - or indeed someone who sells their essays - doesn't understand that basic concept.