<p>I understand completely why a kid wouldn’t tell a parent when this is happening, especially if there are stressful things going on at home. My kids have hidden things from me, due to their other parent’s terminal illness and knowing that I have a lot of stress. They try to protect me, which sometimes can be a bad thing. Hiding things can also happen as a result of magical thinking (“I can deal with it and they will never need to know”).</p>
<p>Will the academic dean or assistant dean meet with you and your kid, to go over your options and what this really means? If you explain that you didn’t go to college in this country and you’re trying to understand, maybe they will be helpful – especially if you are not confrontational or argumentative. Read the rules for academic suspension in the school’s handbook. Perhaps there is a second appeal to the Academic Dean?</p>
<p>If your daughter is suspended for a year, definitely consider enrolling her full-time in CC or other school near your home. Some smaller or lower ranked schools are willing to work with families. Make an appointment with admissions counselors, so you can talk this out and see if they will help. If your daughter is going to back to School #1, try to make sure that the classes she takes will transfer with her. If she does well academically, it can help her overall record.</p>
<p>Next, you have to look into the terms of any financial aid that your daughter may have received. If she is not going to be enrolled full-time, some loans may require that payments be made until she is back in school full-time. </p>
<p>You also have to check any health insurance, to see if it will lapse if she is not enrolled full-time. </p>
<p>It would be helpful to know what her career goals are. A single academic suspension is not the end of the world, but she will have to explain what happened and how she learned from it if she’s going to want to apply to grad school someday. She may not have to submit an academic transcript for many, many employers when applying for that first job out of school (some fields are more inclined to want transcripts than others). When a transcript is submitted, she will have to be prepared to explain the academic suspension just like other students have to explain an extremely poor semester, a misdemeanor underage drinking arrest, etc. This stuff happens.</p>
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<p>I would flesh out EXACTLY what happened. She didn’t copy from someone, I take it. She didn’t show someone her paper, you said. Exactly how did she collaborate? </p>
<p>The easiest avenue would be to treat the next year as a gap year–take classes at the CC, volunteer, etc. That way, in a year’s time she can apply to the original college or try to transfer to another college. With a year’s experience and a bit of contrition (which, BTW, I haven’t heard yet from her), she could get back into college.</p>
<p>Sometimes kids try to cut corners–and sometimes they get busted. It isn’t the end of the world, but you do have to deal with the consequences.</p>
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<p>I don’t understand exactly what she did. You write as though she is guilty of something called collaboration, but that they couldn’t prove it but found her guilty nonetheless. In what manner did she collaborate. You claim that she made a poor decision, so is she actually guilty of something? </p>
<p>If she is in fact guilty of academic dishonesty, frankly the suspension is warranted, the mark on her academic record is warranted and the invitation to reinstate is quite generous. I don’t really understand why she thinks that she is likely to fare better elsewhere. I would recommend that she simply serve out the suspension and apply for reinstatement at the appropriate time, and move forward with more integrity. </p>
<p>Honor codes can be a double edged sword. For some, the code relieves students of pressures to cheat and is very healthy. For others, inadvertent human error can have drastic consequences.</p>
<p>I knew a woman at an honor code school where finals were taken any time during finals week and there was no proctor. Someone asked her how her final was and she said “fine”. She was brought before the honor committee and had to pay a fine. </p>
<p>There was another case of a Dartmouth student who stayed up all night writing a paper and forgot to include the file with his references, which he had but forgot to enclose in the email. He was suspended for a year and lost the investment banking job he had. Even during the hearing, the dean admitted that she wasn’t questioning his integrity, but that she had to be harsh nonetheless. This one shocked me. </p>
<p>If she is innocent of the charges brought against her, I would fight like hell to clear her name, even bringing a lawsuit.</p>