<p>During my freshman year of high school I handed in a plagiarized writing assignment and received academic prohibition and one day suspension. How this will affect my application and the way colleges view me as a candidate? I intend to apply to Columbia, UCLA and Yale. </p>
<p>If it is on your application, or if the colleges are aware of it, your chances of getting into a top college virtually goes down to 0, unless you are truly exceptional</p>
<p>A suspension for academic dishonesty will be viewed less favorably than one for truancy, as an example. Freshman year will be shown more leniency than junior year. You need to ask your GC how/if it will be reported on the Secondary School Report, and how you should address reporting it on your own application. Colleges understand youthful transgressions, but will also be looking for signs that you have learned and grown from your mistakes.</p>
<p>Freshman year may be forgiven, anything beyond that, especially junior or senior year, and things are at risk. As above, talk with your GC about the best way to deal with this.</p>
<p>@14sailing18:
- Please review some recent CC threads concerning this subject, which include considerable good advice.
- More important, be absolutely honest with the universities to which you apply, emphasizing that you made a serious error for which you – alone – are entirely accountable.
- HOWEVER, then explain what you learned from this experience and how it significantly (hopefully) improved both your scholarship and especially your ethics.
- Fundamentally, you cannot avoid reporting substantial mistake, but the foregoing steps may enable a somewhat more charitable interpretation to apply to this matter (although you should be prepared for this to damage your candidacy at universities of Yale’s, UCLA’s and Columbia’s stature).</p>