I’m confused. OP, did you meet with the school’s principal yourself? I hope you are not only getting your daughter’s take on this story. If your DD made a citation mistake, then you should fight this. The punishment makes no sense. If your DD plagiarized the paper, then your DD needs to admit her poor choice, work with her school and move on.
I find it intriguing that so many posters rush to legal counsel. It explains a lot about American education, and parenting.
“I find it intriguing that so many posters rush to legal counsel. It explains a lot about American education, and parenting.”
And why everything is so expensive. Almost every industry has to deal with the costs buried into our litigious society. Sad.
I also suspect there is more to the story. Wouldn’t rush into discussions with attorneys without learning more from the teachers and principal.
Having given it a bit of thought I think I would call the principal’s office Monday morning and ask for a meeting with the principal, teacher, (and if possible) guidance counselor. I’d keep it non-confrontational but would to hear directly from them to learn: 1) exactly what happened and understand their decision to classify it academic dishonesty rather than an error which might simply lower her grade on the paper 2) ask if there is anything that can be done to remediate the situation and take the academic dishonesty off her record and 3) if the academic dishonesty will not come off her record, what they believe the long-term ramifications might be in terms of college so you can make an appropriate application list… Especially in a private day school which (I presume) you are paying for I think this meeting is a reasonable request. Once you get that information you can move forward in whatever way you see fit.
This is not a situation that should ever require the assistance of an attorney. What on earth has become of us when that is the first thought people have?
The school’s policy seems rigid and extreme to me. One of my kids attended a school that required research papers in junior and senior year. They were required to turn in multiple drafts and if a student plagiarized, inadvertently or not, the draft was returned to them ungraded and they were instructed how to fix the problem and resubmit. Was a procedure like this followed at your daughter’s school? If not, the policy seems even more excessive.
Have you met with the teacher to discuss the nature and extent of the problem? It may be that there are additional quality issues with the paper, especially given your daughter’s sleep deprivation as she was completing it. If not, I would discuss the matter with the school administration as the sanction for a single careless error seems unduly harsh.
Why do you have your child in such a soul crushing environment if you aren’t even interested in the rat race and are relieved to have her pushed out of it? That’s a sincere question as I’m sure you’re paying a good amount of money for her to be in that school. There is no universe where my kid would be allowed in a high school that required her to get so little sleep to succeed, or that so harshly treated mistakes vs teaching kids to learn from them. Have you personally spoken to the administration about this incident and ensured you have the correct chain of events and consequences from your daughter?
My kids wrote research papers starting in elementary school - not 30 pages, but they learned about taking notes and putting together a bibliography. I think in middle school they wrote at least a couple of papers with footnotes. By high school they were definitely writing 15-20 page papers for their history classes. This is a big public high school with average SAT scores of 500 per section.
I remember writing my first research paper in 8th grade on James Madison. They made us put footnotes at the bottom of the page not at the end which was really difficult in typewriter days!
But to the OP, it seems odd that if they think the mistake was unintended that it’s permanently on the transcript, but I don’t think she needs to worry if the plan on including glowing letters. OTOH it may be worth rewriting the paper if that’s all it takes. Would that be same topic and sources, or an entirely new paper?
Perhaps the “unintentional misconduct” was the school’s compromise to limit the consequences of the event
OP, I am so very sorry this has happened.
You really need to ascertain whether the facts are exactly as your D has told you. Even though I don’t think your D is lying to you, different perspectives can view the same facts differently.
Like you, I sent my D to a private school. I remember sitting in on the new parent orientation when they talked about their honor code and how they conducted their honor court, and thinking that the honor court system was grossly unfair and lacked proper protections for the student, and wondering whether I should pull my kid out of that school over that issue. Your issue is what every parent at a school like this worries about.
When I saw your post, my initial reaction was, what a bunch of sanctimonious prigs at that school, and they are trying to make themselves seem so upstanding at your D’s expense, and they should have their butts sued off. But that doesn’t help you.
The real issue is, how will whatever steps you take now impact your D? And what lessons do you want your D to take out of this?
I truly believe that this mark on your D’s transcript will not adversely impact her, not even at the tippy tops. Although the AdComs zip through the applications, they do read everything. I believe your HS when they say that the GC and others will write an amazing LOR for your D, and will explain the circumstances. If they personally like your D, I think they will go over and above, and the colleges will be left with the impression that your D went to a HS with impossibly high requirements, and she only made one small mistake once, and boy did she learn from that. This certainly isn’t going to be a kid who cheats at their college.
My belief is grounded in part on what my D’s HS GC said. In her experience the kids who had marks on their transcript actually did terrific in the college admissions season. She thought this was the case because everyone knows kids this age make mistakes, and these students reflected on their mistakes, learned from them, corrected them, and grew from them. I also think it was easy for the school to say this, because any kid who made a bad mistake was kicked out, so they were only dealing with small mistakes.
This is your opportunity, while your child is still in your house, to give your D a lesson in resiliency. As another poster said, give her ice cream over the weekend, but let her know that mistakes happen at every stage in life, and she can’t let her mistakes define her or hold her back. This mistake won’t. It is minor.
Also, you were questioning whether the school was a good fit because of how hard she has had to work. If it were me, I wouldn’t raise this as an issue now. Raising it now makes it seem like you are leaving this track (rigorous HS to rigorous college) because of this mistake, or that she couldn’t hack it. She can! She CAN overcome this minor mistake. Give her confidence! Don’t let this mistake define her. Or her HS experience.
If, when you are going over her list of colleges that she wants to apply to, you look at the lifestyle of each school, that’s a different matter. I know for my D, we intentionally kept of U Chicago, CMU, and Princeton off her list because it was important to all of us that she have enough free time to explore ALL of what college has to offer and didn’t want her to have her nose stuck in a book too much or to miss too much sleep. I hope this doesn’t spark posts of people coming to U Chicago/CMU/Princeton’s defense, because the point isn’t whether those colleges are actually like that or not, the point is that was our perception and we made a decision to avoid schools that we perceived would lead to an unbalanced college career for our D.
I wish you and your D the very best. And wishing you strength!
OP here. Thank you all for your input. My DD cited a secondary source for a primary source, she had 82 sources on the paper. The big issue is the source she cited incorrectly was for a long three paragraph section of her essay. By 11th grade students should have the citing process down cold, this paper was assigned in February. DD was sloppy with how she kept notes on all her early research. When it came to to write, her citing for one of the most important source of her 82 sources, she botched it. This is an independent day school, with where half the class gets a 36 on the ACT, I have other children there, getting a lawyer involved is not wise. She can rewrite over the summer so her grade won’t suffer, however the charge against her won’t be removed (we don’t have the exact charge). She is technically suspended but her principle says she does not actually need to miss school and nobody except her siblings know about it. I spoke to both her principle and college councilor today, the charge will indeed impact where she applies. The school will be supportive in how they write about the incident but her reach schools such as Penn and Vandy are coming off her list. She is devastated. I think she deserves a consequence but this feels too harsh, yet there really is nothing I can do. Also, I have many kids so I don’t want to start snowplowing away their issues. She is very young for her grade, we are considering sending her to boarding school (her where her sibling went) so she can repeat junior year. The charge will still be on her record but she will have the opportunity to have another year of strong grades. This incident also revealed some immaturity. Her current school was a great fit for DD for many years, she entered in kindergarten. However, this year has been way too intense for her. She kept herself on a very tight schedule writing this paper, her flaw was in documenting with detail while doing research. Her advisor called me in tears and said she is the last student she could imagine in this situation.
OP, I just read your post 51. I think your school is dead wrong. They are saying to take Penn and Vandy off the list because THEY aren’t going to say enough in their LORs to overcome this situation. My advice for you, get LORs from some of her teachers. Take her out, send her to another school for a do-over year. But TAKE OUT ALL YOUR OTHER CHILDREN. Do you really want your other kids to be in a school like this?! What lesson is this school teaching your D?
And please, make sure your D does not have her tail between her legs. And make sure that your D doesn’t think that she can’t hack being at a rigorous place. Or that she isn’t good enough. She can and she is.
I’m trying not to judge but I honestly can’t imagine sending my kid to a school like this, even if it yields a much higher chance of getting into an Ivy. I want my kid to achieve, but more than that I want her to be happy.
I’m not sure if I missed something along the line, but the top tier colleges are not the only ones that care about plagiarism/academic dishonesty. Why is there the assumption it would preclude some colleges but not others?
“She is technically suspended but her principle says she does not actually need to miss school and nobody except her siblings know about it. I spoke to both her principle and college councilor today, the charge will indeed impact where she applies. The school will be supportive in how they write about the incident but her reach schools such as Penn and Vandy are coming off her list. She is devastated. I think she deserves a consequence but this feels too harsh, yet there really is nothing I can do.”
I understand why you would not want to hire a lawyer, but you can at least ask your principal what the appeals process would be. Even the hint that you plan to take this further might encourage them to rethink it and back off.
Are you by chance on scholarship at this school? In my private school experience, most full pay parents don’t hesitate to advocate for their children (and in my experiences there were more times when that intervention was absolutely more appropriate than not), almost always with successful results. A full pay parent is a cash cow that even the best private schools can not afford to have walk away. A scholarship family, on the other hand, usually tolerates a certain amount of unfairness, but they too will walk away when it goes too far.
I’ve read through this thread twice and still don’t quite get it. Your D cited a primary source as a secondary source and was charged with academic misconduct - an accusation that is on her permanent record and will prevent her from applying to her dream colleges??? It makes no sense. Does this school subscribe to Turnitin.com (or a similar service) that flags plagiarism and passages that should be cited but aren’t? Or was this just one teacher’s perception? I can see points being taken off of a 20 page paper for errors/omissions in citations, but not this. I’m curious what subject this assignment was for. Is there any chance your D will have the same teacher should she stay at this school for her senior year? I’m an English teacher and whenever I’ve encountered plagiarism (and I check for it regularly) I have a one-on-one with the student and give them the opportunity to revise (while docking them points based on the severity). It’s a good time to teach them a valuable lesson - but not to ruin their college dreams. I’m with @melvin123. I’d be seriously considering yanking all of my kids out.
Attorney? Not.
You cant even begin to ask for damages or reversal when you dont know the impact.
This generally does NOT go on the transcript. In 10+ years, I’ve never seen that on the transcript. (It would be on her fuller record, private.) It’s one question on the Comm App, for the hs and the student. Then explanation. Most colleges do not hang on to the CA.
Many private hs will NOT report disciplinary actions on the app, per privacy policies. Ask about that. Discreetly.
Some act like this is high crimes and misdemeanors. A future guaranteed ruined. Not.
This hs obviously has a policy they applied. But theyll ameliorate in the best way they can.
I think OP meant the family will take Penn and Vandy out. I don’t feel you need to (except you want her out of the rat race.) Even UVa will read this with the context, IF reported.
There’s no machine that finds that spot on the app and auto disqualifies. They read apps, will see the input.
Think like an adcom. Ime, most would have the reaction parents here do: that it was excessive punishment.
Did she cite the source for every paragraph? Or did one or two paragraphs have no citations?
“Even the hint that you plan to take this further might encourage them to rethink it and back off.”
Schools have policies. To me, it sounds like the school is trying to do the best it can by the student while maintaining the integrity of their policy, even if many here deem it to be harsh. Administrators who devote their careers to nurturing children academically aren’t prone to being cold-hearted and callous about such charges. It’s not fun for for them, either. To me, the OP sounds very pragmatic about a very difficult, heartbreaking event.
“A full pay parent is a cash cow that even the best private schools can not afford to have walk away. A scholarship family, on the other hand, usually tolerates a certain amount of unfairness, but they too will walk away when it goes too far.”
Honestly, this is not my experience. Any decently respected and competitive school will apply policies fairly to all students/families. Most of these schools have plenty of families clamoring to get their kids in, including a long list of full pay families. Plus, the OP stated this earlier: "As a former trustee of the school, I am holding back from intervening. "
“Many private hs will NOT report disciplinary actions on the app, per privacy policies.”
Not my experience as well, having read through student handbooks of many top private schools. It is made clear that disciplinary action will be on the student’s record and it must be reported on college applications. However, students do have the chance to address it in their applications as will the college counselor writing the letter of reference/recommendation. A well-crafted “lesson learned” letter from the student is what is needed. Many in the college admissions game realize teenagers (like all of us) make mistakes. This one, in the big scheme of things, is fairly small potatoes. It will be seen by many adcoms in that context but, yes, it might hurt the application among some very selective colleges who need to look for reasons to eliminate among too many highly qualified candidates. Best process is the same process for any candidate - have a well balanced list of colleges.
I would speculate that removing Penn and Vanderbilt from the application list is because the whole package of the student, including the mark on her record, moves them from reaches (which they are for everyone) to far reaches. It sounds like purely a pragmatic move which allows for the student to use time and application spots more wisely. There are tons of great schools out there.
I’d be curious to hear what @Hanna has to say although I know she often focuses on cases with a different disciplinary angle.