Should students who participated in a SAT and ACT cheating ring go to jail?

Only a few years ago, we were peer-pressured into taking the dreaded SAT and ACT college entry exams. Come on, everybody was doing it.

Whether you winged it or invested in multiple test-tip textbooks, settling on a score high enough to hopefully reel in some scholarship money from prospective universities is every college-bound student’s goal.

How about cheating and getting someone else to take the test for you? What if you are willing to pay big bucks?

Five students from Long Island, N.Y., face felony charges for paying other students as much as $3,600 to take the SAT and ACT tests for them. These students, many from respected and prominent families, were hoping to enhance their chances of being accepted to their schools of choice, knowing they would need high standardized test scores to do so.

With fake IDs, they were able to have different students take the test for them and land suitable scores.

Some students are gifted standardized test takers and can get a significantly high score without breaking a sweat. Others have a harder time proving their strengths through a test that does not reflect their GPAs, work ethic or strengths and talents beyond test taking.

We agree that colleges need a fair, easily referenced measure they can use to determine acceptance rates, grant money and scholarships; however, the test certainly does not highlight certain strengths that are essential in determining a student’s success and capabilities.

In many instances, studying for the SAT or ACT isn’t focused on mastering math equations and critical reading but instead on learning the test’s tricks that are meant to throw students off course. Many students have justified cheating by saying since the SAT and ACT are not true tests of their abilities or aptitudes, why play by the rules?

Cheating to get ahead of peers and fool authorities has become the norm. Whether it’s by cheating on a quiz in class, a final exam or a college entrance exam, our competitive culture has become more comfortable with doing whatever it takes to get a high score, regardless of our actual credibility.

Although these students who cheat may be unjustly acquiring scholarship money, stealing opportunities from deserving, honest students, it appears that another story about a standard cheater is no longer notably newsworthy. Ethics has taken a backseat to sheer ambition in the ride to success.

We believe the students deserve to have the cheating incident put on their permanent records, subject to consequences determined by their respective colleges. They might be guilty of a misdemeanor but not a felony.

Although they are not murderers or dangerous criminals, these students deserve to deal with our society’s standard rule: Once a cheater, always a cheater. They will taste the bitterness in their futures by being known as the students who just couldn’t take the test everyone else does, the honest way.