<p>I know it might be a little too late for this now... but I'm still wondering what I should have done. Long story short, I was accused of cheating on an assignment by a librarian when my teacher wasn't in the state. She brought it up to the department chair who forwarded it to the teacher when she got back. Basically i ended up getting a 0 on the assignment even tho my teache admitted i wasn't cheating, and that's why I didn't get a strike on my record. B/c of that assignment, I got a C+ in the class to go along with another C+ a year later b/c i bombed the final. Anyways, i was wondering if I should have written a leter explaining why i got those grades but I decided not to b/c i didn't want to give any impression that I cheated. I'm applying top 15 schools so I'm wondering if this was the right move.</p>
<p>I think explaining that situation would only worsen your predicament. Admissions counselors are very wary of issues concerning dishonesty.</p>
<p>Don't stress too much.. you can't change the past. Just make sure that you strengthen other portions of your application so that adcoms will look at those grades as an anomally and that you are otherwise a great candidate for admisssions. Try to get great recs...and spend some time on your essay.</p>
<p>Yea. That's what I thought. I didn't want to sound like I was making excuses for anything even though my teacher admitted I wasn't cheating and the other 3 people and my answers were totally different. I just really hope it doesn't come back to bite me. Hopefully my essays and teacher recs will do me good. I think they'll be pretty solid.</p>
<p>that is really tough. I would only explain it if the teacher would back you in writing that absolutely no dishonesty occurred at all. You probably did the right thing.</p>
<p>Yea... I think she would but is it too late? I mean, the school has a 3 strikes policy on cheating and I didn't get one b/c it was obvious that the answers on my paper were completely different with another persons.</p>