'I deleted his name': Overachieving high school student removes partner's name on group project after he refused to do any work, partner gets a failing grade

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jun 22, 2025 8:00 AM EDT

If you were an overachiever in high school, you probably did the majority of the work on group projects. Sometimes, this was out of necessity. If you're paired with a woefully incompetent partner, it's hard to trust that they will not only do their fair share of the work, but it's hard to trust that they will do it well. Sometimes, it's best for all involved if you just follow your gut and do all the work yourself. Obviously, this is not what your teacher would like, and it's not necessarily the productive way to go about completing a group project. However, if we're all being honest, group projects are never the fruitful collaborative process that educators hope them to be. If anything, they illuminate who is a hard worker and who isn't.

For this student, he had had enough of doing all the work and sharing the credit. So when it came time to submit his most recent group project, he decided to remove the name of his partner from the title page. You can imagine what happened when his partner received his final grade…

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    Cheezburger Image 10518954752
    via Unsplash+ (Giulia Squillace)

  • We can't help but agree with the author that this was the fault of his partner for not even bothering to respond or acknowledge how hard the author was working while the work was being done. He only emerged suddenly when he realized his name wasn't on the project, signifying that he could have easily participated when it actually counted. Too late, kid!

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    "He skipped the group project meetings. So I submitted it with only my name."

    It was a two-person project. I reached out right away to plan things, and he didn't answer. I figured maybe he was just slow to respond, so I followed up again. And again. Still nothing. No
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    replies. No shows. Not even a "hey, I've been swamped." Just silence. So I kept going without him. Did the research. Built the slides. Wrote the paper.
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    Proofread. Edited. Honestly, I was proud of the work when it was done. The night before the deadline, I stared at the title page for a minute. His name was still there. And I thought he didn't do a single thing. Why should he get credit for work he didn't care about? So I deleted his name.
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    Submitted the file. Closed my laptop and went to bed. He emailed me after the grade posted, asking why his name wasn't there. I didn't bother answering. He had plenty of chances. I just stopped waiting,
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    doctor_rocksoo · 20h ago • I wish more people would do this, or rat their partners out when they're slacking.
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    Tremenda-Carucha 20h ago . I swear I've seen this exact scenario play out in countless group projects. It's maddening how some people can just disappear and expect their name to still be on the finished product! You did what needed doing, OP.
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    . ArgonianCandidate ⚫ 19h ago This exact thing happened to me only it was a group with 3 other people. I submitted the assignment with a note saying no one else contributed, no one showed up to any meetings,
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    and no one helped write any parts of the paper. I received an A and the three others got zero's. So satisfying.
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    OldMetalHead 20h ago . The audacity! I think ghosting him back was even better than tearing him a new one would have been.
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    thegoodgirl 19h ago Include it in the Bibliography: . Called partner on this date Emailed on this date Called Emailed Asked in class
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    No response to any attempt to do the project together, no work submitted, therefore name left off project as this is my own work. You get the idea. CYA.
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    Fluid-Wrongdoer... 19h ago Had this exact thing happen but with a group project of like 4 or 5 ppl. One guy never lifted a finger, never showed up to group meetings. His name was left off and we all gave him a sh peer evaluation.
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    The guy starts frantically emailing and texting all of us. after he got his grade, asking happened. What did he THINK was going to happen?!
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    Cheezburger Image 10518955008
    via Unsplash+ (Giulia Squillace)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    Least-Influence3... 19h ago I did this. I worked on a ~12 page lit review with a partner for a psych class in undergrad, we had the entire term to do it. They ended up not submitting their entire half of the paper
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    and a few hours before the deadline just texted me "oh sorry it's not getting done". It was 25% of our grade. So I slapped an intro and conclusion together, dropped it off at our profs
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    office and emailed him an explanation of what happened. I think I got a B-, my partner had to retake the class
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    FreddyForshado... . 19h ago One of my roommates in college came back from a group meeting one night and just immediately starts taking shots of everclear. He
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    wasn't the heavy drinking sort, so I asked what was going on. He tells me that the group's brilliant plan was to just not do the project and hope the professor didn't notice.
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    I also had kind of the opposite experience once in college. Get assigned to a group and they decide they want to hold a meeting at like 10pm on the other side of town. I didn't have a car
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    back then and the public transit stopped running around like 9-10pm. I tell them I can't make it, they don't even attempt to try to find a different time and/or location. I figure fine,
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    whatever, they can just assign me whatever part of the project is left over, but then they never do. Then a few days later they have a meeting that's actually on campus during the day. It's
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    on a weekend, but I figure it's at least an effort at a compromise. Except then they all just carry on not bothering to explain what they had gone over in the meeting I couldn't make and
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    not really making any effort to include me at all. I ended up getting kind of the last laugh though. The professor had everyone in the group decide how much each person contributed to the overall project and then sign
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    a sheet of paper. I legitimately had to get to my part-time job so was pressuring them to move things along and they ended up saying I did like 40% of a 4-person project. So, I quickly sign my name before they figured out their mistake.
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    Anyway, I would have responded to your "partner's" email with copies of all the messages you sent him, though I have to admit ghosting them after they ghosted you does have a certain symmetry to it.
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students classroom group projects petty revenge teacher petty entitled people karma high school funny immature high schoolers entitled people
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