Grade 10 high school student caught plagiarizing, will it matter?

I plagiarized on the analysis portion of a personal response and received a 0 on the assignment. In addition, I had a talk with my English teacher where she explained the seriousness and implications of such actions.

The following is my school’s plagiarism policy:

“Students who are found to be guilty of plagiarism (or cheating) will not receive credit on the assignment that has been plagiarized. Parents and administration will also be informed of the incident. A zero will be administered for all parties who are involved in plagiarism or cheating in all English courses.”

I did receive a 0 on the assignment, but my parents were not informed of the incident. Does this mean the administration were not informed of the incident either? If they were, would that mean an instance of plagiarism would be recorded on my high school transcript? My main concern is that I will not be accepted into universities because of this incident. Any answers would be highly appreciated.

You should be fine. You typically only have to inform colleges if you’ve been suspended, expelled, have a felony, etc. If you’re in doubt about whether you need to disclose it or not, then I would suggest talking to an administrator and asking them, since no one on here has any way of knowing if your counselor would mention it in a recommendation or something like that.

Quick reply: Yes it matters, because when colleges receive your HS transcript, a mark of plagiarism will show up.

Why did you plagiarize? Are you going to write your essays for college or steal them?

It was accidental plagiarism. I would never steal an essay intentionally.

Do you think my guidance counselor would have been informed about the incident?

I’ve never heard of this happening…I doubt this is true for every high school.

@alignments I don’t know, depends on your school and their policies. I would at the very least bring it up to your counselor and talk to them about it to find out if it will affect you.

@CE527M If it does affect me, do you think I can convince my counselor not to mention it to universities?

If she has any sort of obligation to mention it, then that’s not something you can change her mind on, but if she doesn’t have to mention it, you could potentially get her not to.

@CE527M Okay thank you. Also, high school transcripts only include the courses you have completed, your mark for that course, and the amount of credits you received for that course is that correct? No instances of plagiarism would go on my transcript right? Sorry for repeating myself I just want to make sure.

@alignments That would depend on your school. Every school has a different policy.

People make mistakes. I am sure you learned your lesion. Talk with your teacher to see if she is going to report it. Explain how sorry you were and that you learnt from this. She might not report it.

“Accidental plagiarism”???

@college67 What will happen if she reports it?

I am not really sure. If you did not get in school suspension I would probably say she might not report it. If your parents were not notified then I would probably assume she did not report it.