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Academic integrity in high school is becoming a widespread problem. As students continue to cheat with little hesitation the question becomes, “How far are we willing to go to succeed?”

For many high school students, everything comes down to academics. Monday morning tests, falling asleep over your textbook the night before finals, or sitting at that hard desk with your Number Two pencils before the PSAT are common academic experiences. As many teenagers are becoming more serious about their grades and progress during their four years in high school, the competition gets tough, the expectations rise, and a sense of desperation develops. We seem to be willing to do whatever it takes to raise our GPA, get into the top universities, and succeed in the future. Standardized tests such as the SAT which are based on a students’ ability to reason are coached. With resources such as the Princeton Review and cram courses after school, the bar is being raised but so are the means to meet them. College admissions, parents and mentors, and the never ending pressure to succeed in the future are all factors that lead students to stress over grades and look for an easy way out, causing many to consider cheating and plagiarizing. But how far are we really willing to go?

Grades, rather than education, have become the major focus of many students, and many overlook the consequences or issue of right and wrong when cheating or plagiarizing. Students who cheat often feel the need to keep up with their fellow classmates as the cheaters are receiving high grades while they are receiving the meager class average. Of course we’ve been taught that it is morally wrong to copy work that isn’t yours, and cheating isn’t anything new. The “cheating industry” has evolved from writing answers on the bottom of your shoe to texting answers on cell phones. A recent survey of students and cheating show startling statistics. An overwhelming 95% of high school students in the U.S. have cheated on a test, and 36% say they have used the internet to plagiarize an assignment at least once. Many students have different opinions on what cheating is, but a recent survey of over 24,000 high school students in the U.S. reveals that 64% admit to have seriously cheated on a test or exam at least once. So why do we do it? “This generation is leading incredibly busy lives — involved in athletics, clubs, so many with part-time jobs, and — for seniors — an incredibly demanding and anxiety-producing college search," said high school principal Peter Anderson. Some teachers even claim that being cheated off of without the student’s knowledge is their own fault as well; leading students to believe that cheating is in essence, a game. Cheating is becoming a widespread epidemic, some say. Many justify cheating because, “everyone else is doing it,” and “no one gets caught.”

Despite these misconceptions, there have been cases of students being caught, then faced with severe consequences. In Hanover, New Hampshire in the U.S., high school students were charged for breaking into their teacher’s filing cabinet to steal math exams. Others have been expelled from prestigious college preparatory schools such as in Los Angeles, where six sophomores and more than a dozen other students were recently suspended for stealing history tests with the intention of cheating.

Despite these potential consequences, students continue to cheat, and the percentages rise. The question comes to mind then, that if schools stress academic integrity and take it to a new level, would the percentages decrease? Studies show that new forms of prevention such as Turnitin.com, a website where students submit papers to validate originality, have caused student’s to think again about plagiarism. However, with rising expectations and a competitive atmosphere, it is clear it will ever fully diminish.