<p>Does Harvard check for plagiarism in essay and supplements?
I mean there are thousands and thousands of essay submitted till now and even though how hard someone try many phrases still come on sites like google</p>
<p>Yes. See:
[College</a> Uses Web Plagiarism Checks | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/4/10/college-uses-web-plagiarism-checks-as/]College”>College Uses Web Plagiarism Checks | News | The Harvard Crimson)
[Common</a> App may use plagiarism website to check essays | Columbia Daily Spectator](<a href=“http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2011/03/03/common-app-may-use-plagiarism-website-check-essays]Common”>Common App may use plagiarism website to check essays - Columbia Spectator)
[Turnitin</a> Begins Crackdown on Plagiarism in Admissions Essays - BusinessWeek](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>Oh my goodness</p>
<p>WAIT DOES THIS MEAN YOU AREN’T ALLOWED TO RECYCLE ESSAYS?! Almost every H-caliber school has an essay asking to elaborate on extracurriculars, and I used the same essay (or a slightly longer/shorter version) for all of them. Man, now I’m really nervous.</p>
<p>Turnitin is a good checker, though it has its flaws. Obviously if a text is over 80% word for word plagiarized then something is very fishy, but I’ve had essays with something like 30% “plagiarized” that were either common combinations of words (idiomatic phrases, titles of books, headings) or just quotations. Sometimes, even seemingly random sentences would be considered plagiarized, I suppose because someone out there in the world just happened to construct a sentence very similar to my own. I just hope turnitin doesn’t make it seem like I stole my essays from someone else!</p>
<p>Calm down, and read the Turnitin For Admission comment(on the BusinessWeek page).</p>
<p>It said that it flagged recycled submissions in that article. Plus, turnitin keeps a database of submissions (as far as I know) that it also uses to check for plagiarism. I thought recycling essays was encouraged, but this suggests otherwise, I think.</p>
<p>Read what Turnitin actually says:</p>
<p>“When developing this new service, we found that many admissions professionals do not consider self-plagiarism a problem. This service has multiple safeguards built in to eliminate self-matches to the applicant.”</p>
<p>“We refer to recycled submissions as those application documents that are submitted by multiple applicants. For example, many business school applications contain essay questions that do not change from year to year. We are told that multiple applicants in the same year and in following years may submit the same answers.”</p>
<p>See, “recycled”, as Turnitin understands it, has not the meaning you’re afraid of. So no worries.</p>
<p>If you did not plagiarize, you have nothing to worry about!</p>
<p>The thing is I didnt plagiarize but I am writing on a topic which is very well known
So whatever part of my essay I type and search it comes on the net</p>
<p>@gibby - yeah but all these reports say Common App may use Turnitin …it was a report in 2011/2012 but common app has not included it till now</p>
<p>And mostly I know that Graduate applications essays are checked because they are less creative than undergrad
but still in thousands and thousands of essays almost everything comes up.</p>
<p>Something like " It broadens my research horizons" Now this sentence would have been used by numerous people across the world and in so many years!</p>
<p>
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<p>True, but that sentence is so generic that it borders on bland and meaningless, so it shouldn’t be used in a college essay anyway. </p>
<p>If you re-read the Crimson article, it says:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>So when Harvard reads your example-sentence, they’ll see it as a cliche and won’t think you stole the words from someone else.</p>