I feel guilty and I'm scared.

Transfer Students
1

Hello, first off I would like start off by saying I made a huge mistake. 6 years I transferred from a private college in NYC to CUNY City College of New York. However in order transfer I needed a 2.8 GPA from my previous college. I was at a 2.1 GPA. Knowing full well I could not get into City College with my GPA, I altered my transcript from my previous college before subbmiting them in for the application to CUNY. Now it is 2018 and I am about to graduate with these credentials and it’s eating me alive. I don’t want to live a lie. I realized inorder to aid in where i transfered my credits from to carry over to City College, I’ll have to do this again if i want to go to grad school. I cant do this. I can’t make more lies to hide another lie. I hurt myself. I hurt my family. I cheated the system when people everywhere can barely go to school. I want to confess to the university and start over again. But I’m scared. I’m scared of going to jail. I’m scared that when I confess not only will I get expelled (which I’m okay with) but I can’t apply anywhere else in the future. I don’t know what I should do. I was wondering if someone could give me advice.

2

You need to speak to an attorney familiar with academic issues or, at the very least, a CUNY ombudsman (most schools have someone like that) to find out what your options and possible repercussion are. If you sent in a fraudulent transcript, CUNY could expel you and take away your degree – and do so even after your graduation. So the stakes are high here – and you need to take the next step fully informed as to where it could lead.

3

I’m impressed with your conscience, whatever happens. We’d live in a better world if all couldn’t live with doing wrong. I can’t say what anyone else would do in this situation, but I would certainly go more leniently on someone whose conscience required him/her to confess, much more so than the deceitful person who got caught. I’d probably make you tutor for a year pro bono or something, if I was making the call.

I wish you the best.

4

Yes I’d speak about this with an attorney so you can fully understand your rights and next steps.

5

Sounds bad. I’ve heard of cases where degrees were revoked because the school found out that fraudulent information was given at admissions. This would happen even graduation. I agree with the others; you should consult with an attorney to see what can be done.

6

We’re NYS residents, and I’ve transferred between our state colleges more than once. Our colleges don’t accept self reported GPAs. Your previous college would have had to submit your transcript directly to the CUNY school. If the info. on your app was different they may have thought it was a typo, so don’t confess to anything because they may not have even considered that part of your application. I think the first thing I’d do is request an official transcript from the CUNY school to see if it lists your transfer GPA. You don’t have to tell them why you want it. Then go speak to a lawyer.

For grad school you’ll have to ask each college you attended to send official transcripts. You’ll never see them, so you can’t alter them. And even if you were required to submit them on your own you don’t have to lie. Good luck. Let us know what happens.

7

I won’t lecture you because you know what you did was wrong. The options are pretty clear and limited (I suspect you know them already, but haven’t been able to select which option to take):

  1. Count your lucky stars you got away with it, don’t go to grad school, and enter the workforce. Many people cheated in college; a few have even done what you did. The vast majority don’t ever get caught and move on with their lives.

  2. Get an attorney, as some people have suggested, and confess. Worst case scenario – you may have to re-do college over, enter a school that will take you despite having the academic dishonesty on record, possibly pay for it in cash (I suspect you won’t be able to receive aid in this type of situation), etc.

  3. Take your chances and apply to graduate schools hoping they won’t notice. I don’t think I would take this route, but that’s just me.

Good luck. I know you feel awful, but you’re far from the only person in this situation. Like I said, most people who do this move on and it becomes pretty irrelevant unless they’re like, running for public office or working for the government.