<p>I have a plagiarism on my permanent record as the second offense, the first being what the school called cheating for accidentally taking someone's art in my freshman art class. How much of an impact does this make on my chances to get into college. Colleges I'm Applying to: Duke, University of Texas, UCLA ect. could i still get in or are my chances shot?</p>
<p>Edit: Also, do these schools require you to tell them about academic offenses?</p>
<p>the second offense was the plagirism, It was copying a paper from the internet</p>
<p>Most colleges will ask you do list any disconduct on you high school record. If it’s going to show up on your transcripts when you send them then you need to use that section of the application to explian yourself and hopefully they will look over it. I think that for the schools you are considering though, it certainly won’t help with the level of competitive applicants they recieve.</p>
<p>I hate to say it, but what’s really hurting you here is that freshman year first “offense.” If you can possibly find a way to get that removed (not that I have any idea on going about that), then being a one-time plagiarist won’t significantly drop your chances. Right now, however, it appears as if you have a huge uphill battle.</p>
<p>Two instances of what the school considers cheating will hurt you significantly.</p>
<p>State schools where they do not require teacher or counselor recommendations will be your best bet.</p>
<p>BTW I live in texas (Austin), so are state schools my only bet? I have a 3.5 and 2200 SAT.</p>
<p>Are you a junior now? When was the second offense?</p>
<p>I don’t understand how these show up on your record. Did you fail the course? Get suspended? </p>
<p>I think that you definitely need to disclose this and tackle it head on as to why you learned your lesson. If you can convince them of that, then I think you’ve got a shot.</p>
<p>Agray, you need to be in the top 10% of your high school class. Then you could burn down your high school and still be accepted.</p>
<p>You “accidently” took someone else’s art work in your freshman art class! Did you happen to “accidently” get a grade for it? You portray this as a misunderstanding, but apparently others thought it serious enough to bring up to an Ethics/Honors/Disciplinary Committee, who felt it was a big enough issue to place a note in your file. Then you plagiarized, which is the non-accidental way taking of someone else’s work. </p>
<p>The problem is that those two acts bring into question all of your grades. Will an adcom wonder if you cut corners in your other classes but just didn’t get caught?</p>
<p>Duke? UCLA? Unless you’re averaging 20 points a game I’ll say no chance, (why would they take the risk?). As for Texas, I wouldn’t be so sure that being in the top 10% protects you from Honor Code violations.</p>
<p>Talk to your GC; they’re about the only ones who can give you a real assessment of the damage.</p>
<p>This kind of issue is asked about on the Common Application and on most other college applications I have seen. The Common Application question asks you to reflect on your past mistakes and explain what you have learned from them. What a college will decide about the situation will have much to do with what the college estimates your chances of repeating the mistakes are.</p>
<p>I am a junior Now. the first offense was freshman year. the second offense was this year. the first offense was a true accident, my art teacher thought even though i gave the art back and admitted i took it by accident, he thought I was trying to sell the art for money. The Problem is that my school doesn’t give class rank. they don’t even disclose the average GPA. it is a school that sends many kids to ivy’s and out of 100 kids in our graduating class, 23 were Nation merit semifinalists. If I could explain the incidents well in an essay, would that help my chances?</p>
<p>I’d say even with the essay, your chances at duke/UCLA/pretty much any selective school are pretty slim.
They don’t want cheaters. They don’t need cheaters. As other people have mentioned above, they are going to assume that if you plagiarized once and got caught, you probably plagiarized other times as well, also because this wasn’t a case of like, improperly citing a quote or something, but a whole paper.
Realistically speaking, if you were an adcom and you had a whole ocean of qualified applicants, why on earth would you take the kid who can’t even write his own essays? This is going to sound harsh, but already, Duke and UCLA are really tough schools to get into, an offense like this will probably mean a direct trip to the reject pile, unless of course you’ve cured cancer, won olympic gold, or donated a building.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not so sure the nature of the first offense even matters all that much: the fact remains you already had a first offense, you knew you were going to be on very shaky ground if you got caught cheating again, and yet you still plagiarized.</p>
<p>You should read the book The Gatekeepers which goes into telling what you’re learned from something similar in essays at length.</p>
<p>Colleges take academic dishonesty very seriously. I would think your elite high school does to. Counselors at schools like yours have good relationships with admissions offices. Much will depend on what the school says about you. I think 2 offenses would make an ivy or peer very, very tough though.</p>
<p>My son is in the same boat. He just had plagiarism placed on his record and he’s a senior. It was a first offense and he is now given a chance to explain it on his college apps. He feels now any chances he had of getting into college beyond a community one is zero. He has average grades and average sat’s coming from a northeast college prep school. He’s now hoping he has a chance at St. John’s in Queens. I don’t understand how schools especially private one that cost a bundle would destroy a kids chance of getting into college on a first offense.</p>
<p>I think the bigger issue is assuming that the school is somehow at fault and that your son deserves a buy because the school is expensive.</p>
<p>Actually yes. This school is not bound by a school board or superintendent. They set their own policies and can decide infractions on a case by case basis. That’s what I’m paying for!</p>
<p>Especially on a first offense. He’s been attending the school for 9 years and been an exemplary student both in character and in effort. What kind of message does that send a student?</p>
<p>… I feel like I should inject some hope into this thread, if only to balance it out.</p>
<p>There was a big incident my senior year in high school when around 75% of all the AP Biology students all received a mark on their record for plagiarism and cheating. Among those 75% students were included our valedictorian and the majority of the students rank 25 and higher. Despite this setback, however, most of them are attending Tier I schools. In fact, one of the most notorious cheaters at our school is currently at Northwestern while another one is at Johns Hopkins. Our valedictorian got a full-ride to GA Tech, while others were accepted into Duke and several other top-caliber schools, including Stanford, UChicago, and other Ivies.</p>
<p>That said, I’m not entirely sure how all of them explained away the infractions. It’s a bit of a mystery to me, though I suppose it’s completely possible that the schools don’t do as much digging as they would otherwise have us believe.</p>