Taking Down the School Website - Caltech Supplemental Essay - Ethics and Honor System

Members of the Caltech community live, learn, and work within an Honor System with one simple guideline; 'No member shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community.' While seemingly simple, questions of ethics, honesty and integrity are sometimes puzzling. Share a difficult situation that has challenged you. What was your response, and how did you arrive at a solution? (200 word max)

"Oops."

This was the first thought that went through my 14 year old brain as I scanned through the serial log on the bright Dell screen. The realization? I had just taken down the school website. (It was unintentional, I swear!)

I had originally intended to test the integrity of my personal website by sending a large amount of internet packets to my home server. Yet rather than typing my own IP address in the terminal prompt, I copied and pasted my school's instead! Questions floated in my mind as I stared at the 504 gateway error: do I turn myself in or just act innocent? After all, my masked IP was untraceable.

Seeing my classmates upset at the district for the school website's down time convinced me that I should cough up the truth; even though I had made a genuine mistake, it felt unethical to let the blame be put on someone else. As a result, I confessed my crime to my technology club advisor with a mere: "I did it."

The consequences weren't so pleasant: I received my first detention and an earful from my parents. But exposing a blatant security flaw within the school network and doing the right thing? Worth it.

I haven't tried a stunt like that ever since.
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I was just wondering if this essay really answered the prompt. Sure, I do have some stories of cheating in school and on computer science projects/assessments but I was wondering if this would make the cut for Caltech. Thank you so much!

You have excellent content but it doesn't sound that convincing. Let's break down the essay questions:

Share a difficult situation that has challenged you.
You shared it. But you could have done in better way.

What was your response?
How did you cope with the damage you have done. You should include how they found out about you and how did you present yourself. Did you talked to them?

how did you arrive at a solution?
What was the solution. Getting detention is not the solution. Did you help them with website security?

Include these things properly and you are ready to go. Good Luck!

Kat, never ever tell a reviewer that taking down a school website was worth it. In fact, you are risking a lot by admitting to having hacked into and taken down your school website at this point in your application. Being known as a hacker to the reviewer could either work for, or against you. In this case, you essay sounds a lot like you are bragging about what happened even though you tried to sound bothered (a very little bit). Ethics and honor is something that Caltech takes very seriously. So, if you wish to tell this story, you have to show a repentant side. A side that realizes the consequences of your actions and the punishments it entailed, including lessons learned. What you should not do, is close the essay by saying that your actions were worth it. There is absolutely no acceptable justification for hacking into any system. You are lucky to have gotten off with a slap on the wrist this time. Don't brag about it. If I were you, I would not even share this information with the reviewer due to the possible negative effects it can have on your application.

@Holt

Thank you so much for your response. I thought the same thing as well just last night. I wrote this draft a couple weeks ago and only last night did I realize that all Caltech was looking for in this essay was a secure standing in following the honor code. I decided to write this draft instead. Yes it is cliche but I think it gets the job done. And you're right, although I did take the school website down by accident (seriously was), I was given small consequences and it would almost sound sarcastic if I tried to talk about the guilt I faced (because there wasn't really much). I decided to rewrite it to this please tell me what you think:

Our IB Chemistry class was notorious in my school for its brutality in tests, labs, internal assessments, and exams. By the end of the first semester of my junior year, I was sitting with an 87 in the class, for what would be my first "B" on my transcript ever. It didn't bother me too much, but I decided to work hard to at least make sure I understood concepts.

While I began to study for the exam weeks in advance, many of my friends had found the test bank to the questions and began to inform the rest of the class, including me, about the "treasure" they'd found online.

"I'll send you the link to the questions", one of my friends said.

"No, I don't want them", I responded. My grade was important to some degree, but I knew that learning the content was far more important in helping me gain both my IB diploma and a secure standing of the core concepts.

"Fine, your loss", he said.

Come test day, and I had breezed through the exam without much difficulty, receiving a high score to improve my average. The others? Not so well. It seemed that our teacher had changed up the questions!

I guess it wasn't my loss.

Your essay is really good. Love the way how you turning down your school's website and still be honest about it. I am even more impressed how you say, that your experience was a good was to show that it was flawed and could be easily hacked by anyone.

Kat, it is important that you show the reviewer that you have integrity and honor in this essay. While it is good that you opted not to cheat on your test. The fact that you did not say anything about it to the authorities of the school shows that your integrity is not that strong. Doing only partially right is not the same as doing the right thing. The right thing to have done here was not not cheat and inform on your classmates. I know, that sounds extreme. That is the kind of school that Caltech is. Remember their motto is; 'No member shall take unfair advantage of any other member of the Caltech community.'

In this instance, while you did right not to cheat, you allowed the cheaters to take unfair advantage of others. Granted that the test questions were changed. What if the questions were not changed? What then? Those with the cheat sheet would have managed to take unfair advantage of the others. What we need here is a story wherein you did the right thing morally. The key focus should be on the prevention of unfair advantage over others. Do you think you can revise this essay or maybe have another story to tell more along those lines?