Academic Honor Violation and its effect upon my Chances?

Applying to College Admission Stories
1

Hi! I am a junior attending high school with a current 4.5 cumulative GPA. I had just received an honor code violation for, truthfully, sending a friend of mine my hypotheses and one of my lab analysis questions in order to help him. He asked me for them and I felt as though rejecting him would be unethical on my part. Little did I know that he would copy and paste my answers and claimed it to be his own. Thus, my AP Biology teacher had caught and issued to both of us an honor code violation as well as a Saturday school. This, to me, is quite disheartening as I believe that my future is in jeopardy simply because I had placed my trust upon the wrong person to do the right thing. Not only was my own honor insulted and violated, but I am not suffering the same consequences as the guilty party, which is a bit unfair. Fortunately, my teacher explained to me that the first violation serves as a type of warning and does not appear as a red flag upon your academic record. She also understands my situation and sympathizes with me, stating that she must give me the honor code violation for the sake of consistency in handling these matters. As a result, when she does write up the report, she will make it clear that these answers were plagiarized from me against my consent, for I had no intention to just simply give him the answers so that he could just copy them.

So, the question I have is how will colleges react to this? My teacher said that they won’t be able to see the “warning” first violation of the honor code unless they actually dug deeper into my records by contacting the school. But will they be able to understand my position in this? I feel as if I’m a victim in this situation. I feel as though my future is ruined all because of someone’s ineptitude! The only reason why I got into this situation was because I was trying to help him…doing something nice! I understand that the method in which I helped him was also bad on my part, for I should have helped him solely through words and not by simply sending him my answers as well. It was definitely a mistake on my part as well, and I now am certainly cognizant of the deceptiveness of other students as well as to who I should place my trust upon.

Also, will colleges such as UCs (I’m planning on attending one of these universities) require me to explain this on my application? How will the presence of a “first-level” honor code violation affect my admission into upper universities as well as ivy league?

Thank you very much for reading this!

2

Most colleges, especially larger universities like the UCs, will not bother to contact your school to dig deeper into your academic record. They simply don’t have the time.

3

Really? That is actually quite reassuring, however, would it be prudent to include this debacle in my personal statement when applying for college? Perhaps it would be a good way to show colleges my progression over my high school years and the lessons that I’ve learned from my mistakes. After all, it’d be better to mention it rather than to omit it, and risk the chance of having them find out by themselves?

4

I’m sorry to hear that you had to go through such things… But I am pretty sure you still have a great chance as long as you work hard.

I know one guy who got several suspensions because of various violations he committed. definitely worse case than you. However, he was a pretty smart kid, so with a really good SAT score (2230+), he got into UCLA.

Another kid I know, he messed up during his Freshmen year and Sophomore year, and got suspended couple of times as well (drugs, fights,). He even turned in his college applications a day late. And yet, he got into both Cornell and Duke (he had really good test scores and essays; weak GPA) I know he had a really good relationship with our counselor, and she helped him out a lot.

So, my recommendation is, KEEP ON WORKING HARD. Your GPA looks good, so work on your test scores and extra curricular! Try to get intimate recommendation letters from your teachers and staffs who will be able to prove your current integrity.

Colleges are not trying to snap at you over every mistake you made in your life (especially if it’s a mistake of a 16/17 year old). Therefore, show that you improved, worked hard, and succeeded to regain the respect in your community :smiley:

I hope my reply helped… haha… well, good luck :smiley:

5

Thank you very much laminin and RedBalloons! Your responses have really put everything into a broader perspective. Looking at this situation that way, I should work hard to improve rather than brood over past mistakes. Thanks so much for the insight!