MSU student gives up “the ghost” in pinch-hitting scheme

Would you pay $1,000 for an A?

Mike, an MSU student who wishes to remain anonymous, did.

His math professor didn’t get the money, however. Mike, a junior business major, paid a fellow student to take his class for him.

The Wichitan has learned that Mike and at least two other MSU students shelled out money to others who sat in classes in their place. The other two participants refused to talk about their cheating experiences.

Mike admitted to masterminding the pinch-hitting scheme, a method of cheating often referred to as “ghosting.”

“It just didn’t seem too bad if I was paying for (a grade) with my own money,” he rationalized.

Mike, who is attending MSU on an academic scholarship, believes he had no other choice but to cheat.

“I picked classes I had no chance in hell of passing,” he said. “So I thought I would just shatter the system. In Spring 2011, I recruited my cousin, who is excellent at math, to take my College Algebra class.”

Desperate times call for desperate measures, Mike said.

“For me, homework is never really the problem because you have unlimited time,” he explained. “It’s the tests that I was worried about. I just didn’t want to have to study 12 hours a day for a math test. Math is not my strong point.”

Mike negotiated a “going rate” with his cousin that he continued to use for other classes. Mike paid $1,000 for an “A,” $800 for a “B” and $600 for a “C”. No money would exchange hands if he got anything lower.

Mike said he learned quickly that beating the system was not an uncomplicated task.

One of the core essentials of this operation is picking the right professor, he said.

Mike and two friends spent two months investigating before putting their plan into action. They read up on professors on RateMyProfessor.com, a review site where students anonymously rate professors from universities around the nation.

Several factors, from how observant the professor was to class size and student-to-professor ratio, were considered before a teacher was selected as the “lucky winner.”

Mike said they tried to find a professor who taught to the class as a whole rather than giving students a lot of individual attention.

“We hand-picked a teacher that would never interact with students on an individual basis so that the person I picked wouldn’t be noticed much,” Mike said.

Mike then went to the classroom where the course would be held to check out the seating arrangements. Finally, Mike decided upon the exact seat he wanted his worker to sit.

Mike said preparing for this method of cheating was a lot of work.

“You get this Secret Agent feeling when you’re doing it that makes it so much better,” Mike said. “It’s very fun. We were hustling a state university.”

That spring, while Mike completed his four other classes, he received brief weekly updates on how his College Algebra class was going. Until midterms, there were no problems. Then someone familiar to the real Mike had a close encounter with the professor.

“A family member was trying to help me in math because they thought I was actually taking the class,” Mike said. “So they went to meet the teacher without telling me to ask what they could do to help me. (My cousin) has darker skin so when this family member with pale skin goes up to my teacher, it was kind of obvious we weren’t related. We really worried that the teacher might notice.”

The professor didn’t seem to notice.

After this near-disaster, Mike hired a friend to be on standby to pretend to be his parent – just in case.

By May, Mike had racked up an “A” in College Algebra and his cousin was $1,000 richer.

Mike said this accomplishment shows a huge hole in MSU’s academic honesty system.

“It’s almost shocking how lax professors are with attendance,” Mike said. “Even in high school, when a substitute teacher would come in, they would have our picture in the system with the roll sheet. We couldn’t even switch names in a small juvenile, humorous way, yet we’re in college taking classes for each other. God, spend a little money for ID pictures and then put them on the computer and that would never happen again. Or make us even show our ID when we get to class.”

After a successful first run, Mike decided to test his luck again during the summer when his major required he take an economics course. Again, it was the math aspect of the class that kept him out of the classroom.

“I sought help for the class and got a tutor, but my confidence was so down from people saying, ‘I heard people quit college because of that class’ or ‘people never graduate because of that class,’” Mike said. “I thought, there was one more step, then I’m scot free until graduation. I knew I’d get A’s and B’s in everything else, so why not just have someone do it for me.”

For the economics class, Mike recruited a friend. It was the attendance policy for this class that almost got them caught.

Mike learned quickly that he was not sending a machine to class.

He could not control if his friend was tired or just didn’t feel like going to class.

This forced Mike to set new ground rules.

“The professor noticed that he skipped two or three classes,” Mike said. “Then I stressed don’t get called out in class for anything. Never go to the bathroom. The whole class looked at him one time, they would recognize him. It’s Wichita Falls. You can’t trust too many people.”

The final straw occurred before Finals Week. Fortunately, it was someone he knew who caught him.

“They saw my name on the roll sheet the teacher passed around the room every day and connected the dots,” Mike said. “I’m lucky it wasn’t someone I was enemies with. They could’ve easily told the professor, here is a picture of Mike and this is the Mike that’s coming to class. That would be expulsion.”

Mike received a B in the economics class.

After his second close encounter, Mike decided to retire his cheating ways for the straight and narrow path.

“I’m trying to get in touch with my conscious,” Mike said. “I’m anonymously admitting this happened hoping to clear that. Now that I’ve gotten the (math-based) classes out of the way, I don’t want anyone else to do it.”

This decision comes with mixed emotions, he admitted.

“I feel a bit like a hypocrite because I got away with the classes I thought I’d never pass, but then I imagined someone else doing it, stealing my idea, and I was like, ‘What? They can’t cheat the system like that.’ Then I realized I did the same thing.”

Mike admits now that laziness played a significant part in his original plan.

“I am lazy, but fortunately  money can offset that. The more wealthy someone is, the more leniency they have to be lazy.” he said.

As the fall semester continues, Mike is taking all of his courses himself and leaving his deceitful past behind him.

“To anyone who insists on doing this, be careful,” Mike said. “Go into it knowing that there is a huge risk if you get caught. I don’t think there are too many professors that wouldn’t try to force expulsion. If that happens, you can’t even get into another college. You really should ask yourself if it’s worth it. I got really lucky that I got away with it.”