Addressing a unique institutional action

[NYUMedBound]

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Long time lurker, first time poster. Any feedback would be appreciated.

During my junior year in college I was an officer in a new social fraternity on campus that got into a little trouble. Being a new organization (a fraternal organization) the group wanted to 'live up' to the fraternity mindset and incorporate pre-initiation tasks. The group decided to hold a 'purity week.' The week that led up to their initiation night they were kept busy with a variety of different tasks. Long story short -- in the spam of all this someone got their feelings hurt (really) and reported the 'week incident' which led to my entire fraternity to get in trouble.

The majority of the members received some type of probation with community service for hazing while a few others got hit with multiple charges of Hazing, endangerment, hindering the conduct process, forgery fraud etc. I was one of those individuals.

My participation in the event was small -- unfortunately it took place at my and the President's home which made me a prime target of investigation. The few who got the heavy charges were all officers and we appealed it and ultimately had all charges dropped except 'Having Knowledge of or Assisting with a Violation.' The board's logic was because we had authority and the opportunity to 'stop' the incident we would be charged with having knowledge of a violation.


Fast forward to now -- 2.5 years from the incident -- I have graduated, pursuing a higher degree and applying to medical school. I requested my disciplinary file to make sure I can provide the best information and saw that all the charges (even though I was found not responsible) are still present on my file and will be for another 7 years.


How should I address this? I have learned quite a bit from the experience and even though it has tainted my record I am glad that it has happened -- many life lessons came from dealing with the situation. I plan to take responsibility for the charge that I have been found responsible for honestly but I do not know how to address all the 'not responsible' charges. Many of those charges were exaggerated and false accusations but still remain.

Thanks for any input.

 

[red doctober]

You don't have to say here, but if I were reviewing your app, I'd wonder the specifics of what actually occurred. I don't know how specific the report from your institution is, so maybe if it just has a generic description of the IA, when addressing it, say what events happened.

Long story short -- in the spam of all this someone got their feelings hurt (really)

So it doesn't really sound like you actually learned anything from this...

 

[d12]

You'll have to address it in your AMCAS application. State what happened, how you've grown from it and hope for the best.

 

[aspiring20]

are you ultimately found responsible for any of the charges? if you were NEVER found responsible, then there's no IA, pure and simple.

 

[LizzyM]

You do have to report this ( 'Having Knowledge of or Assisting with a Violation') and should explain that it had to do with a fraternity initiation that involved x y and z and which was reported to institutional authorities by some participants to have hurt their feelings. Through this experience you learned ____.


I don't expect that this will be more than a minor speed bump on the road to medical school if the rest of your application is very good.