Hello. I am in a terrible situation of my own making.
I’m dual enrolled at my local university in addition to a full IB course load. When going to turn in my dual enrollment application packet, I realized I forgot to ask my guidance counselor to sign a line on one of the forms I had to fill out, so I forged it. The rest of the paperwork was clearly signed by my guidance counselor. 6 months later, when reviewing my files, an official took note of this fairly obvious forgery, and I am attending an academic misconduct hearing in the following days.
My school’s IB coordinator act as the guidance counselor for all IB seniors, and, come college application time, he will be the person who will denote any evidence of academic misconduct, should I convicted of such conduct at my hearing. My IB coordinator knows nothing of the incident I mentioned before, and, barring some sort of anonymous tip, it is unlikely that he will be making any such disclosure when filling out both my Common App and QuestBridge (I’m from a low income background) Guidance Counselor forms. I am wondering whether, in light of this, I am still obligated to respond in the affirmative to the Common App question regarding academic misconduct.
I am an incoming senior and, barring this stupid incident, I’m a highly competitive applicant hellbent on attending an Ivy. I am very scared that all I have worked for, and all of the hopes my family have placed on me, will come crumbling down (I would be the first in my family to attend college, and they all expect such great things from me. I am horrified that I have let them down). I’m scared that if I mark Yes on the question of academic misconduct on my Common and QuestBridge App, I will be denied admission to all institutions I seek to apply to, as well as denied financial aid that I desperately need. According to the policy of the university I’m dual enrolled in, if I’m charged with academic dishonesty then a “confidential student record of academic dishonesty” will be included within my dual enrollment paperwork, but not on my college transcript. Considering that most of the institutions I’m applying to probably won’t accept my dual enrollment credits anyways, it is likely that the colleges I apply to will never receive/request this information. Given this, I’m tempted to check “No” on the question regarding academic conduct on my Common/Quest Bridge App, to suffer whatever consequences my university imposes on me, and to try to move on from this the best I know how. If there is any advice to be had regarding how to approach academic misconduct, or on how dual enrollment information is disclosed to out of state schools, I would greatly appreciate it.