NTA. I work at an institution in Europe and due to the nature of our degrees, 98% of our students are not from Europe. As such, all of them have English as their second language. Unfortunately, a large majority of these students, in their home countries, have attended institutions where they view the grade they were originally awarded as merely a starting point to the grade they will eventually end up with. The result of this is that many students will go to their assessors and complain of illness, time constraints or awkward working conditions etc as a way of negotiating a final higher grade. This has to be gone through with new students every year.

I have worked in Higher Education for a long time and have seen many many cases of sly, obvious and blatant plagiarism.

What has always been true is that some students, every year, will try and cheat the system in subtle ways. What has also been true is that I've never met one student who didn't know what plagiarism was and that passing off others' ideas as your own is the biggest crime of essay writing.

I'm not sure what potential your Academic Counselor is referring to when that potential includes getting there by cheating.