Guys I'm in So Much Trouble Please Help Anything

Applying to College
1

i posted my essay on a website and it just occurred to me that anyone could steal it and use it for their own. i have a very long and tiring reason as to why i cannot delete it, but i will spare you the details.

I wrote my common app essay about why i liked engineering and the essay i posted was a supplemental for columbia for “why engineering”.
my common app and supplemental have very similar things, like specific names of people, and clubs and programs that i did.
if someone did copy my work and send it to columbia and an admissions officers sees my application and his have the same supplemental but my common app has the same info as the supp. , will i still be rejected for accused of plagiarism?
what should i do so that even if someone did copy my work and send it to columbia, that i could prove that this is my work to the columbia admission officers?
Im actually tearing up right now writing this because i am so stupid.
i need help…

2

Probably you wont have the same admissions officer anyway, as there are so many. Relax. There’s nothing you can do at this point.

A more likely problem would be the adcom searching your essay and finding it posted somewhere, making it look plagiarized.

3

There’s absolutely nothing you can do about it at this point.

So take a deep breath and move on.

4

@XCjunior2016 @bjkmom Should i Email the admissions office? But they are closed until january 4th…

5

What exactly would you say in your email?

Why bring their attention to the fact that there may be duplicate essays? IF someone did copy your essay-- and there’s no guarantee that anyone did-- then they may be applying to different schools. Realistically, anyone stupid &/or lazy enough to copy and paste someone else’s essay probably doesn’t have the academic chops to get into Columbia for engineering.

6

@bjkmom thank you. So would you advise drafting a new essay. the only problem left is that when adcoms check for plagiarism,because my essay is online, it will come up as 100% plagiarized.

7

Here’s what I suggest.

When school reopens in a week, be first in line with your guidance counselor. Ask him/her what to do. (In fact, in my school you could email her and take a chance that she’s checking her emails over Christmas break.)

You won’t be the first one with this question. He or she will have dealt with it before. A letter from her explaining the situation will have much more weight than one from you.

8

Frankly, I don’t think this is a big deal. Certainly not worth crying over. They aren’t likely to check for plagiarism unless something triggers their suspicion that this ‘voice’ isn’t really you. And a quick conversation/email with your GC, as bjkmom suggests, should be more than enough to straighten it out. You can drop a quick line to admissions saying that you posted your essay on line to get feedback and realized after the fact that that wasn’t a good idea since it might look like you copied someone else’s essay or your essay might be ‘repurposed’ by someone else. Mention that you’ve spoken to your GC about it, and if they have any concerns they can verify with him/her that the work is indeed 100% yours.

9

I wouldn’t be so sure. According to a 2010 article in the Brown school newspaper

Not all schools screen, probably most don’t, but if an essay is up on a public website then companies like Turnitin.com have probably put it into their database.