In his article titled “What college cheating scandal says about us”, Shan Wu of CNN talks about the recent college scandal and states his opinion opposed the scandals. “Yale, Stanford, Wake Forest, UCLA, USC, the University of Texas and Georgetown have released statements, largely presenting themselves as victims of the allege criminal schemes, and in some cases announcing internal investigations”. All these well-known college names are involved in the scandal, which shows the severity of this issue. After the reveal on the recent scandal, Wu points out that this issue is universal, not limited to certain group of people, since “wealthy and successful Americans – lawyers like Gordon Caplan, co-chair of the law firm Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Hollywood actors like Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman” are also committed involving in the scandals. Wu believes that the scandal reveals the increasing stress of students from parents, peers, and colleges, which is pushing students to commit wrongdoings to reach their parents’ expectations. He mentions how unfair this is to other students that actually work hard and athletes genuinely spending hours of training. And as a society, the scandals and bribery are reflecting a competitive and corrupt social environment.
Shan Wu wrote this article in order to reveal the severity of the scandals and bribery and inform parents about the pressure that students have and the problems of giving too much pressure and hoping their kids to have a better future. Wu shows his opinion towards the scandal issue by appealing to pathos. He compares the students “who strive and thrive in the face of their genuine need for accommodations” to the ones that use money and reputations to get into famous schools and points out the unfairness of this situation. Most readers are not as wealthy as the celebrities that are involved, therefore, it would arouse their complaints about the people that got their degrees by bribery and therefore agree with the author’s point that bribery should be considered more seriously to prevent it happening this much and also consider the reasons of what is causing it. The author also talks about student-athletes, “who carry full academic loads in addition to spending hours after school and on weekends training and competing”. All these effort and time they spent are not being treated well by the colleges because some other people are using the money to pay off the time and effort. This appeals to the audience who are doing sports, they know how hard is to keep up their grades and do well in sports. Moreover, he points out problems of stress under this scandal issue. Parents are pushing too hard on their children and may cause them to think about an easier way to meet their parents’ expectations. This would make some parents think about themselves and may consider communicating with their children.
I agree with Wu’s opinion that the scandal issue is unfair to most people are genuinely working hard for it and also students are experiencing too much pressure from different aspects of their lives. Every parent wants their children to be successful and have a bright future, so they push their kids to take as many AP classes as possible in order to impress colleges and also participate in all kinds of activities to make their resume look perfect. However, they miss their communication with their children. The students may suffer from all the work he/she has and still need to go to sports or other events, this may lead to depression and lack of sleep which would cause more problems. Some students may consider cheating on the tests or copying other people’s homework in order to make their parents happy. This would lead to an even worse situation like bribery. I’ve been struggling this semester because I’m involved in softball team and all my AP classes are on the same day. AP tests are coming up and I haven’t had any time to study for my SAT test. It’s getting overwhelming and I’m always tired which is not good for me to concentrate in class. I really want to meet my parents’ expectations of me because I’ve always tried to do it. I would try to be better at time management and maybe it would help.
Sophia AP LANG 