<p>Hey I got accepted to michigan back in December and after getting in my work ethic went down the drain. I ended up plagiarizing in my english class (forgot to paraphrase 4 sentences it was late and paper was due the next day) which resulted in a automatic fail for the quater. The rest of my grades are normal low 90s high 80s. Should i inform them about the fail or should i just not tell them anything and wait till final report. i added a new English class and this third quater i am doing very well. Or should i tell them risky getting revoked. Advice?</p>
<p>They’ll find out, but if you tell them now, you could come up with a reason.</p>
<p>They rescind you if your grades are 3 Cs, a D, or an F. I don’t know if that is marking period or final.</p>
<p>Tell them of course, why, and what you learned. It will be better than Michigan finding out on its own.</p>
<p>i would tell them but im not sure i would say plagiarism in the letter. Be vague about it. also for your chances of being revoked i would say pretty high prob a 90% chance they revoke you</p>
<p>Adcoms here on CC have always advocated for telling them. It shows them that you are mature and taking responsibility instead if just ignoring it and hoping they’ll ignore it-- which they won’t.</p>
<p>should i tell them that it was plagiarism or be very vague</p>
<p>I would clearly6 say it was only 4 sentences, but you realize it was still wrong. That is a much less severe offense than plagiarizing a whole assignment.</p>
<p>I don’t see the issue with waiting for the final report. Assuming he does well in his other marking periods the grade should be good enough to not be rescinded at the end of the year.</p>
<p>@alacky however, you are <em>not</em> an adcom. so, no offense, but I wouldn’t trust the baseless suggestion from someone on the internet with something so important. Adcoms here on CC and on the blogs for schools say that the responsible thing to do is tell them. There’s a fairly strong chance his acceptance will get rescinded if they find out not from him. However, if he handles this maturely and doesn’t try to run from it and hope it goes away, there’s a chance he could salvage the situation.</p>
<p>I am not an adcom but I’d advise you to tell them. It will shows that you have made a mistake, recognized it, told them like a grown man and is ready to face the consequences.</p>
<p>It will looks way much better than looking like a kid who made mistake and is waiting for his parents to find out while he is hiding in his room.</p>
<p>I’m not an adcom either, but I know I have read adcoms on here saying that they don’t see quarterly grades- ie they will never see the F. Only semester grades and final grades get reported. Assuming he gets a decent final quarter grade, his overall grade will not cause them to recind.</p>
<p>^ this. And it’s not an issue of ‘trust’, just math. 4 marking periods. Kid fails one, aces the others. Final grade will be decent. It’s not a ‘baseless suggestion’ but rather one based on fact. Sure, if he failed the course and that was the final grade he would get then I would suggest he notify Michigan but, as it is, I think that it’s unnecessary.</p>
<p>I should also add that it depends on how the system calculates a final grade and how the F is listed. If they gave him a ZERO for the quarter and take a numerical average for the end of the year grade, then they OP still wouldn’t have much of a chance of getting a decent grade. (eg 95, 95, 0, 95 is a final of 69% which might cause a rescission.</p>
<p>here is the problem though the english classes for seniors are 2 quarters each so i picked up another 2 quarter english class b/c of the fail. but the real question is how do i tell them i failed without going into too much detail about why?</p>
<p>I have tried to stay away from this thread. But I have two things to say.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>You need to know what your school is going to report to Michigan. They still have to send your final transcript, and they may feel they have reason to report your academic dishonesty, too. You need to talk with your guidance counselor about this. A.S.A.P.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t be a weasel. You did something dishonest, and you got caught. At least be a grown-up now about what’s happened. You didn’t “[end] up plagiarizing.” You plagiarized. You submitted somebody else’s writing, but with your name on it. But if you try to hedge on the wording, or you try to admit as little as possible of what you did, here’s what I think will happen: Michigan will see the failing grades, but they’ll have either an explanation that explains nothing, or a clear attempt at excuse-making and mitigation. From this non-explanation explanation, they’ll conclude either that something bad happened, but they’ll never really get to the bottom of it, or that you haven’t given them any reason to think you’ll ever have more strength of character than you had when you plagiarized in the first place.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>They’d rather have a reason to admit you despite what’s happened than a reason to rescind their initial offer of admission. Give them something to work with.</p>
<p>I agree with Sikorsky. I wasn’t trying to suggest the OP weasel out of anything, I was just pointing out that there was a chance they would never even find out depending to how grades are reported. Since the OP is apparently on a semester system my theory doesn’t hold water anyway, and the possible GC communication with UM is a good point.</p>
<p>Upon some reflection, I do think it would be appropriate to say something like, “In a x-page paper for my English class, I included four sentences of another author’s work without attribution. [Pick one of the following: “I was careless,” or “I was wrong,”] …and I regret having done it. Although the balance of the paper was my own work, my school’s single-sanction policy on academic honesty calls for a failing grade for that marking period. I may not agree that a single sanction is appropriate for all cases of academic dishonesty, whether deliberate or unintentional, but I do admit candidly that what I did was [“careless” or “wrong”], and I intend to be [“more careful” or “completely honest”] in my written work in the future.”</p>
<p>As another poster pointed out, there is a difference in degree between plagiarizing a quotation and plagiarizing an entire assignment. I think it’s OK to say that you did only the former, and not the latter. I think it’s OK to suggest that you think the penalty may be excessive for the size of the offense. But it’s just more upstanding, IMO, to be completely candid about what happened.</p>
<p>I’ve kind of hedged on the wording because I don’t know whether you simply forgot to go back and include attribution, or you knew what you were doing when you were doing it. But you’re old enough to know which it was, and to act appropriately.</p>
<p>It’s kind of ironic, I guess, that I’m suggesting words you could use to explain how you took somebody else’s words and claimed them as your own. So, let me just say, I think that if you want to use this idea, you should rework the language so that it’s yours and not mine. But after that, you don’t have to cite “Some Guy on College Confidential.” You’re totally welcome to take anything I’ve said that you think might be helpful, make it your own, and use it to deal with Michigan.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Beautifully stated, Silkorsky. </p>
<p>OP, Listen to Silkorsky.</p>
<p>You need to talk to your GC. See what he/she advises and try to find out what, if anything, will be reported by GC. Get some insight before deciding how to proceed.</p>
<p>Posted before reading page 2.</p>