<p>So a friend and I were discussing college essay plagiarism and were debating about a certain point, which I hope CC can clear up.</p>
<p>If a kid gets caught plagiarizing, or just making up things on his essay, what will a given university do? </p>
<p>anything besides a definite rejection letter?</p>
<p>they'll just reject you. nothing else they can do. They might, send your counselor something though.</p>
<p>they will do nothing besides reject you. Anything else opens them up to lawsuits where they'd have to PROVE you plagiarized. And that you copied from X and not the other way around.</p>
<p>Admissions officers must read thousands of essays though, how do they know if an essay is plagiarized or just resembles something they've seen before?</p>
<p>Especially on questions that are more generic, like "Why do you want to attend [insert school here]?"</p>
<p>I wouldn't want my original essays to be suspected of plagiarism just because it might sound like something they've read before and let's face it, they have probably read some variation of an essay any applicant sends in.</p>
<p>I think I'm college applications are making me paranoid. :D</p>