Students accused of copying university application forms
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Prospective university students are cutting and pasting material off the internet to pep up their application forms, admissions officers have discovered.
Anti-plagiarism computer software found that five per cent of the 50,000 personal statements tested contained phrases lifted from websites.
The number of forms including copied phrases went up as the deadline for applications approached.
The personal statement is part of the application form where would-be students can expand upon their interests and reasons for wishing to study a particular course. It is intended to give them chance to stand out as individuals and, since 10 per cent of students get straight As at A-level, to help tutors pick candidates with the most aptitude.
The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service ran applications for Oxbridge, medicine, dentistry and veterinary science through plagiarism detection software as an experiment in methods of picking up borrowed material.
The programme found 370 sentences containing the phrase "a fascination for how the human body works", 234 relating an incident in which the applicant set his or her pyjamas on fire at the age of eight, sparking an interest in science, and 175 phrases involving an elderly or infirm grandfather. Copied phrases were most likely to appear at the start or end of the statement.
The Ucas study was prompted by a surge in the number of application advice websites, some of which charge a fee for writing individual statements.
Ucas did not plan to take action against students caught copying, he added.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments