ScrewedPreMed
New Member
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2021
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Hello everyone,
I couldn't really find any situations similar to my own and I really wanted insight on what to do here.
DISCLAIMER: This is a rant. I'm aware that if I'm required to report this situation as an IA that I would have to use less excusatory language, as adcoms will not be fond of it. For now I'm just explaining my situation from my perspective and letting out my frustrations with the whole ordeal. If you're only going to make assumptions of my character without providing helpful advice, please just keep it to yourself and don't post. I'm already currently more of a mental mess than I have ever been in my life due to this situation.
I was in a lab class during my spring semester and we had a lab report due. The professor's instructions were extremely vague so I asked a friend who took the lab before me how they went about doing it. The professor and TA were terrible when it came to responding on time, so I figured it be a much better use of my time to ask a close friend who could most likely help me in a few hours tops. My friend was busy at the time so they just sent me their old lab report so I can get an idea of how to approach it. It should be noted that their data was completely different from mine so there was no realistic way that I could cheat off of them and expect to get a good grade. Anyways, flashforward to about the end of March, I submitted my lab report once figuring out how to do it. The lab TA takes over a month to grade it, which was whatever because they were completing their Master's program.
Here's where the problem comes in. The TA grades the lab report in May and it turns out that I submitted my friend's completely unaltered paper instead of mine. I submitted it early in the morning and the combination of the website crashing numerous times and my own exhaustion caused me to make this mistake. For some reason my laptop didn't give me that warning that says "x file has the same name as x file, do you want to rename one?". It came up as a 100% match in the plagiarism checker and the TA had no choice but to report it to the professor. Unfortunately I had a professor who was notorious for reporting people to the Honor Council for any minor thing, to the point that the Honor Council is very familiar with their name. I was reported without a chance to explain that it was genuinely a complete accident, and had to meet with a Case Manager.
I met with the Case Manager and presented all the information that I believed would explain what happened. Luckily they were a far more understanding person than my professor and easy to talk to. Due to the fact that I submitted a 100% matched paper with no alterations to it (which, come on... who would try to submit someone else's entire paper as their own when they know it's going through a plagiarism checker?) and the fact that I sent him my lab report which shows the last modified date as being the day the report was submitted, he said that it was highly unlikely that I would be found guilty of anything.
That was all over a month ago. The Student Conduct office is extremely busy because they're understaffed and cases have tripled since the onset of online learning apparently. I asked the office multiple times if there was anything on my record and/or transcript, to which they stated there was no indication of that at all. My concern is about whether or not I list it as an Institutional Action on AMCAS. I asked the Case Manager and he said if I was found not guilty I could honestly say that I had never had any prior Institutional Actions, but I still haven't received a verdict yet. I don't know how to proceed and I've been holding off on submitting my application in the hopes that they would hurry and give me a decision. I know I was told that it was unlikely that I'd be found guilty of anything but I have no way of knowing the future. I called the office to try and get my situation expedited due to the circumstances, but it's hard to get in contact with the case manager again.
Does anyone know if I can not check the Institutional Action box on AMCAS but update schools later in the event that something does happen? I know that many of these adcoms have extremely negative opinions about academic IAs, and I'm afraid if I check the box and try to explain the situation they'll just immediately misinterpret it or not care at all. For reference I've been getting straight A's for the past several years and scored well on the MCAT (515+). I'm also URM and from a first generation immigrant family. I've had numerous teaching/tutoring positions and academics have never been an issue for me. I don't want people making assumptions that I need to cheat to get by, when I really didn't do anything but ask for clarification on an unclear task.
Thanks for reading this longwinded post. This whole situation is just eating away at my mental state and I just really need help figuring out what to do. I already planned to take a gap year due to COVID and really do not want to take another because of an accusation that has no resolution yet.
Some advice an Adcom on reddit gave me:
Sorry this is happening to you. You made a mistake, things happen. Let it be an unfortunate lesson to always double/triple check even when exhausted, the stakes only get higher later. But let's see how we can help an honest lad like yourself deal with this.
You have no official I.A on record. It also looks like you will eventually be found not guilty based on what you have been saying. So you have some options.
I couldn't really find any situations similar to my own and I really wanted insight on what to do here.
DISCLAIMER: This is a rant. I'm aware that if I'm required to report this situation as an IA that I would have to use less excusatory language, as adcoms will not be fond of it. For now I'm just explaining my situation from my perspective and letting out my frustrations with the whole ordeal. If you're only going to make assumptions of my character without providing helpful advice, please just keep it to yourself and don't post. I'm already currently more of a mental mess than I have ever been in my life due to this situation.
I was in a lab class during my spring semester and we had a lab report due. The professor's instructions were extremely vague so I asked a friend who took the lab before me how they went about doing it. The professor and TA were terrible when it came to responding on time, so I figured it be a much better use of my time to ask a close friend who could most likely help me in a few hours tops. My friend was busy at the time so they just sent me their old lab report so I can get an idea of how to approach it. It should be noted that their data was completely different from mine so there was no realistic way that I could cheat off of them and expect to get a good grade. Anyways, flashforward to about the end of March, I submitted my lab report once figuring out how to do it. The lab TA takes over a month to grade it, which was whatever because they were completing their Master's program.
Here's where the problem comes in. The TA grades the lab report in May and it turns out that I submitted my friend's completely unaltered paper instead of mine. I submitted it early in the morning and the combination of the website crashing numerous times and my own exhaustion caused me to make this mistake. For some reason my laptop didn't give me that warning that says "x file has the same name as x file, do you want to rename one?". It came up as a 100% match in the plagiarism checker and the TA had no choice but to report it to the professor. Unfortunately I had a professor who was notorious for reporting people to the Honor Council for any minor thing, to the point that the Honor Council is very familiar with their name. I was reported without a chance to explain that it was genuinely a complete accident, and had to meet with a Case Manager.
I met with the Case Manager and presented all the information that I believed would explain what happened. Luckily they were a far more understanding person than my professor and easy to talk to. Due to the fact that I submitted a 100% matched paper with no alterations to it (which, come on... who would try to submit someone else's entire paper as their own when they know it's going through a plagiarism checker?) and the fact that I sent him my lab report which shows the last modified date as being the day the report was submitted, he said that it was highly unlikely that I would be found guilty of anything.
That was all over a month ago. The Student Conduct office is extremely busy because they're understaffed and cases have tripled since the onset of online learning apparently. I asked the office multiple times if there was anything on my record and/or transcript, to which they stated there was no indication of that at all. My concern is about whether or not I list it as an Institutional Action on AMCAS. I asked the Case Manager and he said if I was found not guilty I could honestly say that I had never had any prior Institutional Actions, but I still haven't received a verdict yet. I don't know how to proceed and I've been holding off on submitting my application in the hopes that they would hurry and give me a decision. I know I was told that it was unlikely that I'd be found guilty of anything but I have no way of knowing the future. I called the office to try and get my situation expedited due to the circumstances, but it's hard to get in contact with the case manager again.
Does anyone know if I can not check the Institutional Action box on AMCAS but update schools later in the event that something does happen? I know that many of these adcoms have extremely negative opinions about academic IAs, and I'm afraid if I check the box and try to explain the situation they'll just immediately misinterpret it or not care at all. For reference I've been getting straight A's for the past several years and scored well on the MCAT (515+). I'm also URM and from a first generation immigrant family. I've had numerous teaching/tutoring positions and academics have never been an issue for me. I don't want people making assumptions that I need to cheat to get by, when I really didn't do anything but ask for clarification on an unclear task.
Thanks for reading this longwinded post. This whole situation is just eating away at my mental state and I just really need help figuring out what to do. I already planned to take a gap year due to COVID and really do not want to take another because of an accusation that has no resolution yet.
Some advice an Adcom on reddit gave me:
Sorry this is happening to you. You made a mistake, things happen. Let it be an unfortunate lesson to always double/triple check even when exhausted, the stakes only get higher later. But let's see how we can help an honest lad like yourself deal with this.
You have no official I.A on record. It also looks like you will eventually be found not guilty based on what you have been saying. So you have some options.
- Submit now without checking the I.A, since you don't have one. You get the app out earlier, but if they do decide to fill an I.A against you, you will have to update the schools considering you. Not a great look to backtrack on that.
- Submit checking an I.A but in the explanation you state the investigation is ongoing and nothing is filled yet. This is the most transparent option, and you can later update schools saying the charges were dropped, but it does put a flag on the AMCAS app. You can also check no on the I.A part but explain the situation in a secondary prompt. This doesn't flag AMCAS, but maybe an ADCOM would question why you left something like this to a secondary. IDK, everyone thinks differently.
- Wait until a decision has been made, then submit. This delays your app submission, but at least you can submit with peace of mind regardless of how the situation develops.
