HELP! I just got an email from my dream school saying they will rescind my application. For context, my sister is going there and I wrote about a mutual activity. For that activity, we both wrote an article together which I referred to in my essay. Apparently, my sister did the same thing. I am getting flagged and in shock. Please help me, this is my dream school. What should I do?
Option A: Should I admit that we both referred to this article written by us both?
Way to little info to have an informed opinion but I would generally suggest telling the truth. From your cursory description it doesn’t sound like you did anything unethical.
Did you? Looking at it from the colleges standpoint do you have anything to hide?
Does your sister go there or are you both applicants? Given you haven’t seemingly been accepted I assume by rescinding your application you mean rejecting you?
Basically, my sister goes there right now. I can write an appeal letter to the school. They are rescinding unless I appeal and they approve. Thank you so much for helping
Define “referred to”. Do you mean “I mentioned by name an article that I co-authored”? Or to you really mean “quoted”? In particular, do you mean “quoted an entire paragraph or more without citing the source”?
If by article, you mean a published work it should show a co-byline with your sister. Simply provide a link — it should be easy to clear up. It is concerning that not telling the truth would be an option and surprising they would have done this level of checking.
It is not a published work, however, it was something we were asked to write and speak about at a conference. I have the president of the organization’s approval and can get him to have a say
Then there should likely be video of the two of you presenting and a program explaining your dual role. I’m sure a letter from the president on letterhead would suffice. I don’t think article is the correct word to use, fyi.
Could you be more clear about what happened? Did you and your sister jointly write a presentation and deliver it together at a conference? You both wrote about the same event in your essays?
You can’t copy an article word for word in an another article or essay without referencing that article even if you wrote it yourself. It sounds like you are accused of plagiarism.
My sister and I were asked to write an article and speak out about it at a conference. We both wrote it and presented it. We both ended up using it in our essays however I wasn’t aware she wrote the same things as me
It sounds as if they think that you claimed your sister’s work as your own. You need to let them know, right away, with proof, that whatever you’re referring to was a joint effort on the part of you and your sister, credited to BOTH of you, at the time that it was originally presented. Otherwise, you’ve got little chance of straightening this out. Yes, if it was jointly presented at a conference by both of you, with equal credit to each of you, and the organizer of the conference can write a letter explaining this, then it would be a good idea to get this over to the admissions office ASAP.