“Grant Uy’s reign of terror has finally come to an end,” commented senior counselor Mr. Oglesby, referencing the shocking scandal that has begun to unfold following Uy’s withdrawal from Jesuit yesterday. Uy, who had the highest GPA among the senior class, was asked to leave the Jesuit community after repeated instances of cheating, a development that has come as a surprise to many students and faculty members.
The final straw? Last Friday, Uy was caught trying to pass off someone else’s essay as his own for his AP Language and Composition class. Dr. Degen, who is a rather experienced writer himself and who has taught all three of Uy’s English classes over the past three years, realized something was wrong after noticing consistent, repeated quirks in Uy’s essays.
“There seemed to be a great disparity between his confusion about errors in syntax and his ability to produce effective writing,” Dr. Degen said. “That was one of the first clues that eventually caused me to unravel his faux grammatical expertise.  What was most horrifying, and I can barely believe it, but he called a sentence fused when clearly independent clauses were linked appropriately with a semicolon. An absolutely egregious error. ” Having noticed these grammatical irregularities earlier this year, Dr. Degen more closely investigated his recent essay submissions, finally discovering, largely thanks to an egregiously misplaced modifier and an incorrectly labeled elliptical adjectival subordinate clause, that Uy had outsourced his writing overseas, paying Chinese writers upwards of $200 per paper.
Further complicating the scandal, Uy apparently has a long history of cheating at Jesuit. During his sophomore year, he was caught cheating on an exam by stashing a desktop computer in a bathroom stall, attempting to look up answers while on “restroom breaks” during the test. One of his teachers, wishing to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from Uy, who is known for his violent tendencies, eventually uncovered Uy’s scheme after he spent an unusually long time in the bathroom. Uy later explained that he took far longer than expected because he had not only forgotten to install Google Chrome, which meant he had to use Internet Explorer, but also had mistakenly installed the Ask Toolbar, which came packaged with Java. The desktop computer was also discovered by an unfortunate freshman who was shocked and bewildered by the school’s apparently new amenities in the restrooms. However, the school administration, believing in redemption, decided to keep the matter hushed and gave Uy another chance.
“Grant assured me that this was a one-time thing, and he promised upon his honor that he wouldn’t repeat the offense, but as it turned out, as with many others at this school, he had pulled the wool over my eyes,” explained Mr. Williams, Uy’s sophomore counselor. “I’m saddened and embarrassed by my own gullibility.” Uy allegedly was able to convince several faculty members that he would change, deceiving them with his innocent charm, cool wit, and devilish good looks.
Just one year later, however, another one of his clever and convoluted plots to cheat on a test was thwarted. During an AP U.S. History test his junior year, Uy supposedly asked Mr. Batik, seemingly facetiously, if calculators were allowed on the multiple choice test. Mr. Batik, known for his sense of humor, jokingly acceded and proceeded to watch Uy randomly pretend to frantically punch numbers into his calculator. Or so he thought.
“I was completely convinced that he was just trying to mess with me as usual,” Mr. Batik later commented. In reality, Uy had acquired the multiple choice answers from a classmate, who to this day has not been caught, and had stored them onto his calculator. However, he had mistakenly forgotten to turn off the beta text-to-speech function of his TI calculator (which can be enabled by entering a special sequence of numbers on the Mode screen), which gave away his deception. “I’m outraged that Grant would do something like that to this school, but I knew there was always something wrong with that kid,” Mr. Batik said at the time. “It was rather sketchy that he aced my tests yet didn’t seem to care about school at all.” Needless to say, the damage Uy has done with his lies and deceit is incalculable.
Many speculate that Uy has gotten away with cheating on far more assignments over the past three and a half years. Although no concrete evidence has been found, Uy is also suspected to have taped illegal study aids to the underside of his desk, to have collaborated on exams with classmates standing outside the window via American Sign Language, and to have encoded test answers onto the back of his tie in the form of grease stains from French fries from lunch. His other teachers especially have questioned what other schemes have gone unnoticed.
For example, Mr. Kirby, the now-assistant principal, mentioned, “As his freshman biology teacher, I thought I knew Grant pretty well. He seemed nice enough, and at the time I didn’t think twice about any suspicious behavior, but I’m now wondering what else he got away with.” Surprisingly, Uy’s rap sheet doesn’t end at cheating; he’s also been caught shamelessly writing bogus Roundup articles to get Winner’s Passes, dealing Pokemon cards to underclassmen and omitting multiple Oxford commas in his articles, essays and other writing assignments.
Reactions to these recent developments have unsurprisingly been mixed. While some people claim they’ve suspected the arrogant hooligan of fraudulence from the start but kept quiet largely because of his overbearing and intimidating size; many have also expressed remorse for the loss of such the great, tall, and fearless leader of the senior class; and others have even suggested that Uy was framed by aliens, the Illuminati, or the salutatorian.
“I completely expected it,” classmate Alex Bain ’14 claims. “He’s not actually smart; the only reason why he got good grades was that he cheated on everything. I saw him copying off people all the time, and once I even caught him copying off of my test once—he got an 85.” A couple of his teachers besides Mr. Batik have also expressed similar sentiments.
“I knew it,” exclaimed his physics teacher Mr. Katz, simultaneously snapping his fingers. “He’s always been pretty sketchy. Earlier this year he repeatedly threatened to light a fire in my office, but I thought he was just kidding around.” Whether or not Uy has also committed arson is currently not known, but he allegedly has also threatened to vandalize other teachers’ offices by, for instance, trapping in animals such as cats overnight.
Alex McIntyre ’14, another of his classmates, had a different story to tell: “Grant’s always struck me as a dishonest person in general. I once made the mistake of allowing him to quote me in one of his Roundup articles, and he purposely and craftily manipulated…my words through…omission and [inserted words] of his own to…expose my…extremist [communist] principles to the world.”
Meanwhile, some younger peers are apparently devastated by the loss of such a great role model of the Jesuit grad profile, renowned both outside the classroom for his athleticism and inside the classroom for his apparent intelligence; junior Michael Lanham ’15, for instance, lamented, “I always looked up to Grant, someone a grade above me who had apparently achieved great things academically. When I had a question relating to school or even life, I knew who I could go to. I can’t believe he was able to lie to us all so easily—it hurts a lot. We’re all stunned.”
Some of his other classmates, however, seem less concerned; “I’m just thankful he was finally exposed,” classmate Erik Furton ’14 joked. “After 17 years of coming second to that shameless cheater, I’m glad we’re all moving up a rank.” Furton, who had been the salutatorian, is now in the running for valedictorian following Uy’s expulsion.
“All my plans are finally coming to fruition,” likewise jested senior James Ferrara ’14 with a maniacal laugh; he may stand to regain his second-place standing now that Uy is gone.
Others are more interested in how Uy managed to carry out such ridiculous plans: “I heard that his still-unknown accomplice for that test on April 19th last year hacked Mr. Batik’s computer to get the answer key beforehand,” commented his close friend Mauricio Narvaez ’14, a prominent computer programmer. “The method used to gain access—connecting to the RAM diversion protocol through the I/O pins on the USB ports—was rather impressive, if I do say so myself.” As a side note, the school administration is still looking for that unknown hacker and would gratefully accept any further information regarding suspicious computer-proficient students.
Students and faculty members alike question whether Uy’s case signals larger issues in our educational system, some of whom have even posited that the Illuminati, political extremists, or even aliens have infiltrated the highest positions at Jesuit.
Yet, regardless of who suspected him all along, who never saw it coming, or who didn’t really care, one thing remains clear: the legendary tale of Grant Uy’s expulsion will forever remain as proof of the gullibility of the Jesuit community.
In my own, original, words: You stay classy, Jesuit. Have an amazing April Fools’ Day.
