Yes just one essay
I can talk to my school guidance counselor and have a meeting with her on friday
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No, not the same essay anywhere
I think she also used the same thing as me (using the article), so I think I got flagged because it is like hers
Can you talk to your sister and get a copy of what she wrote?
Also, have you told your parents yet? Will they be supportive in helping you appeal?
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I would know precisely the degree of duplication before responding. If verbatim without citation that is plagiarism and you regrettably may have an uphill battle.
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This will be key. If you havenāt done anything wrong, your GC can be an important advocate with admissions. Hopefully your GC will be willing to support you and directly contact admissions (again assuming you didnāt do anything wrong).
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Iām so sorry OP - I donāt think a teenager would realize that this would be incorrect: you and your sister co-wrote the article.
Good advice already - get the head of the conference to call/write the UC, explain in a very nice email the situation, etc.
BUT Iām replying because I am a tiny tiny bit worried about your sister now: If SHE used that article on her college app - and under UCās then rules it had to be solely her work (letās say she didnāt put in the college app āI wrote this with OP my brother jointlyā" - well, now Iām worried they could put her on probation.
Please talk to someone in the field - i.e., I think if thereās any chance your parents have a bit of money, hire a college application pro type person and spend money getting his/her help - seems both of you should be in the clear, but goodness what if BOTH of you are kicked out because of violating the UC āmust be solely your workā rule?
Good luck - I am sure this can be fixed!! But I would beg my parents to hire a college application professional to guide you. UCs are such fantastic schools, and if in state huge $ discount to private - worth $$$ to pay a pro to help fix this.
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Good points re: the sister.
And I agree that if OPās parents can possibly afford it, hiring an independent college admissions counselor could be very helpful.
OP, it is good that you are moving quickly with this.
@pianolover1 for your meeting with the guidance counselor, it would be best to take a copy of your original article for the presentation event, a copy of any supporting materials from that event, such as relevant programs and conference materials that were handed out, a copy of your application and a copy of your sisterās application.
Good luck.
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Please make a timeline of exactly what happened from being contacted by the organization (before the talk) to the present time. It is hard to give advice with missing dates/facts. Give date of original contact, date paper presented to organization, date of presentation, date of sisterās application to college, date of your application to college. Then fill in and explain. This will be a good basis to reference and to make sure you (and possibly your sister) are on the same page with dates and what actually happened. It is also hard to follow without a chronological chart. I would make this timeline before meeting with guidance counselor. Also, donāt sugarcoat at this point, especially with the guidance counselor. There is nothing worse than leaving out important facts when discussing with a professional and then those important facts pop up later.
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I also would be worried about your sisterās position now. I agree with the previous posters about formulating a timeline. I would also have the co-authored article, your sisterās UC essay regarding this topic and your own.
Iām also starting to worry that the plagiarism might have originated in the article that you used for your essay. I can see you MAYBE explaining away plagiarizing your own words (although whoever taught you to write a research paper should have taught you the rules of citation) but if you plagiarized someone elseās work thatās a hard dead-end to back out of.
You need to get help on this from a knowledgeable adult.
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Hi. Yes my parents would be suppportive in helping me
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Iām glad of that.
I would include them at your meeting with the guidance counselor tomorrow then, if it is at all possible.
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I asked my guidance counselor to meet but she is out for tomorrow and Tuesday due to the long weekend. I will ask her to phone call because this is urgent
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Also, do you know if the alleged plagiarism is due to you and your sisterās application essays being too similar or due to your application being too similar to the article that you co-wrote.
I would assume the latter if the article is google-able, because i think it would be more difficult for them to determine that two application essays are very similar.
Knowing this information can help you analyze your options, as well as how implicated your sister might be.
I would definitely get your parents involved if they arenāt yet, and consider hiring outside help after you talk to the guidance counselor, based on what they say.
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I think the first (me and my sisterās essays) because the article isnāt published. We used similar snippets of the article that we both wrote
Ok. Thatās good to know.
If you havenāt already, you should google that snippet online to see if your article might have been published or posted somewhere without your knowledge.
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I see a bad situation potentially getting worse here with regards to the sister
Several times the OP has been asked if she/he pasted or closely paraphrased from the article co-written with the sister into personal essays. And repeatedly the question is deflected. Answers like āI used that articleā and āWe both used that article in our essaysā. Which is vague enough to make it plausible only themes were common, not a cut/paste job.
Plagiarism software like Turnitin works by breaking documents into phrases and then seeing if the order of those phrases resembles other documents. See https://www.turnitin.com/blog/the-detection-is-in-the-details
So it isnāt that the OP and sister expressed the same ideas in their essays, writing of their love of adventure or what they learned working as the soup kitchen. There are only so many experiences HS kids have had, tens of thousands of essays express ideas and experiences over and over. What appears to have happened is they both lifted/rephrased paragraphs or more from their shared essay.
On the home page of the UC application UC application it gives the Statement of Integrity which says all work must be their own. I think you also have to review and agree to it in order to submit your app.
So the OP telling UC admissions their essay was not their own work by pointing to a paper with a second author is not a winning argument. Furthermore it throws the sister under the bus. She, too, agreed to those conditions when she applied. Giving UC the shared essay, which UC will be able to see appears on the essays of the sister, proves that she too did not submit original material. UC has the right to rescind students after theyāve been admitted for dishonesty in their application.
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The way many plagiarism checker companies work, when someone submits a paper or essay for review the company retains a copy for future use. This grows their database and allows them to detect cheaters in HS or college that might be using a paper borrowed from a friend but that never was published.
The UC Privacy Practices says your personal data can be shared with
Vendors that need access to your Personal Data in order to
provide UCOP Undergraduate Admissions Services. These include vendors who
administer UC placement examinations for entering students and vendors who
provide support to applicants completing UCās admissions application.
https://apply.universityofcalifornia.edu/docs/StatementOfPrivacy.pdf
I am not a lawyer, but a plagiarism company likely falls under this or some other clause in the document. Owning a few law schools, UC has access to pretty good lawyers 
A few years ago some students actually sued Turnitin for accumulating their essays in this way and they lost the lawsuit.
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OP I sent you a PMā¦look for the little green circle next to your profile pic in the upper right corner.
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