Cheating IA… looking for guidance…

[krayon75]

---

Members do not see this ad.

I recognize that I’ve completely shot myself in the foot here, and it is the most shameful mistake of my life, so feel free to be as ruthless as possible. I will understand. Just looking for any guidance.

For context:

I’m a third year student, and I have a ~3.8 gpa, and I took the MCAT two weeks ago, and confident that I got a decent score. My exam was a couple days after the MCAT.

I was stressed from MCAT prep, as well as balancing my ECs and classwork, so I went in to the exam underprepared. In a moment of madness, I then decided to pull out my study guide during the last ten minutes of the exam, as I got desperate. It’s inexplicable and inexcusable, and I feel immense shame and regret.

I’m guaranteed to get an IA mark on my record, alongside a 0 on the exam and a full letter deduction from final grade. I have since withdrawn from the class, but the IA will remain in the school’s disciplinary records.

I understand that this is the worst possible IA, and that my app is DOA at basically every medical school according to this site and reddit. I just want to know if theres any hope for me here, and what I need to do to move on past this.

I recognize the fact that I need to grow as a person, not only to put time between the IA and application time, but to also understand why I would ever make the decision to cheat in the first place and to reform myself completely. I plan on taking a gap year(s) to hopefully address this.

If anyone has any additional guidance, please help me out. Thank you 🙏🏽

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Welcome to the forums.

What guidance are you seeking? You already said you plan to take some growth years before applying. Take your medicine, and accept the consequences. No shortcuts.

 

[PickaGodnPray]

Not really a whole lot to say here, sad thing is that you cheated so late in your undergraduate education it will be harder to reconcile and will require a longer time for adcoms to overlook, possibly longer than the MCAT is good for. Also the fact you are still deflecting and saying it was because you were so busy with your MCAT and other things that you didn't have time to study and resorted to cheating, but so many students I went to undergrad with balanced their loads so that's not really an excuse.

 

[Anthodite]

I recognize that I’ve completely shot myself in the foot here, and it is the most shameful mistake of my life, so feel free to be as ruthless as possible. I will understand. Just looking for any guidance.

For context:

I’m a third year student, and I have a ~3.8 gpa, and I took the MCAT two weeks ago, and confident that I got a decent score. My exam was a couple days after the MCAT.

I was stressed from MCAT prep, as well as balancing my ECs and classwork, so I went in to the exam underprepared. In a moment of madness, I then decided to pull out my study guide during the last ten minutes of the exam, as I got desperate. It’s inexplicable and inexcusable, and I feel immense shame and regret.

I’m guaranteed to get an IA mark on my record, alongside a 0 on the exam and a full letter deduction from final grade. I have since withdrawn from the class, but the IA will remain in the school’s disciplinary records.

I understand that this is the worst possible IA, and that my app is DOA at basically every medical school according to this site and reddit. I just want to know if theres any hope for me here, and what I need to do to move on past this.

I recognize the fact that I need to grow as a person, not only to put time between the IA and application time, but to also understand why I would ever make the decision to cheat in the first place and to reform myself completely. I plan on taking a gap year(s) to hopefully address this.

If anyone has any additional guidance, please help me out. Thank you 🙏🏽

Hi OP,

I know this is not the guidance you’re asking for but I encourage you to reach out counseling services in your school or call a local psychiatrists office. They’ll help you identify ways to move forward and still achieve your dream of medicine.

I know anxiety can make you do stupid things which you only realize out of foresight. I’m sorry this happened to you but I promise you can grow from it.

 

[Goro]

I recognize that I’ve completely shot myself in the foot here, and it is the most shameful mistake of my life, so feel free to be as ruthless as possible. I will understand. Just looking for any guidance.

For context:

I’m a third year student, and I have a ~3.8 gpa, and I took the MCAT two weeks ago, and confident that I got a decent score. My exam was a couple days after the MCAT.

I was stressed from MCAT prep, as well as balancing my ECs and classwork, so I went in to the exam underprepared. In a moment of madness, I then decided to pull out my study guide during the last ten minutes of the exam, as I got desperate. It’s inexplicable and inexcusable, and I feel immense shame and regret.

I’m guaranteed to get an IA mark on my record, alongside a 0 on the exam and a full letter deduction from final grade. I have since withdrawn from the class, but the IA will remain in the school’s disciplinary records.

I understand that this is the worst possible IA, and that my app is DOA at basically every medical school according to this site and reddit. I just want to know if theres any hope for me here, and what I need to do to move on past this.

I recognize the fact that I need to grow as a person, not only to put time between the IA and application time, but to also understand why I would ever make the decision to cheat in the first place and to reform myself completely. I plan on taking a gap year(s) to hopefully address this.

If anyone has any additional guidance, please help me out. Thank you 🙏🏽

How far along in your schooling are you?

 

[FlowRate]

Hi OP,

I know this is not the guidance you’re asking for but I encourage you to reach out counseling services in your school or call a local psychiatrists office. They’ll help you identify ways to move forward and still achieve your dream of medicine.

I know anxiety can make you do stupid things which you only realize out of foresight. I’m sorry this happened to you but I promise you can grow from it.

OP doesn't need specialty medical psychiatric care, a psychiatrist would not be the next best step in management. Totally fine to work through this with some sort of therapist, however. That would mean a psychologist (PhD, PsyD), licensed clinical social worker (LCSW and in some states LICSW), or other master's level counselor (LPC, LMFT, etc.)

I have no clue how likely it is that you could potentially come out of this without a cheating IA, but it's worth consulting your school's policies and student handbook and any mentors and advisors you have to find out if there's some sort of way for you to avoid getting the black mark. Sometimes people consult a lawyer in this sort of situation, although often school policies are that the lawyer can't actually accompany you to any of this--it's more to ensure that you understand your rights and that procedural guarantees are followed.

 

[krayon75]

Not really a whole lot to say here, sad thing is that you cheated so late in your undergraduate education it will be harder to reconcile and will require a longer time for adcoms to overlook, possibly longer than the MCAT is good for. Also the fact you are still deflecting and saying it was because you were so busy with your MCAT and other things that you didn't have time to study and resorted to cheating, but so many students I went to undergrad with balanced their loads so that's not really an excuse.

It wasn’t my intention to deflect, but just to provide context. I know that everyone deals with responsibilities and even life situations that are worse than mine, but don’t make mistakes such as these. I take full responsibility for what I did.

 

[krayon75]

How far along in your schooling are you?

Junior year of undergrad. This happened in the 4th week of this semester.

 

[krayon75]

OP doesn't need specialty medical psychiatric care, a psychiatrist would not be the next best step in management. Totally fine to work through this with some sort of therapist, however. That would mean a psychologist (PhD, PsyD), licensed clinical social worker (LCSW and in some states LICSW), or other master's level counselor (LPC, LMFT, etc.)

I have no clue how likely it is that you could potentially come out of this without a cheating IA, but it's worth consulting your school's policies and student handbook and any mentors and advisors you have to find out if there's some sort of way for you to avoid getting the black mark. Sometimes people consult a lawyer in this sort of situation, although often school policies are that the lawyer can't actually accompany you to any of this--it's more to ensure that you understand your rights and that procedural guarantees are followed.

It’s basically past this point as I’ve already been charged with the offense. It moved fairly rapidly from the incident to me being charged, and I was cooperative with the process as there was no real basis to appeal given the evidence. I plan on being as upfront about this issue as possible.

For cases similar to mine, the school keeps IAs in disciplinary records for ten years, so its a extremely tough position to be in.

 

[PickaGodnPray]

Take a couple gap years, try to be involved in your campus in ways that let you learn from the mistake. During that time, reach out to your program at the start of the year you plan to apply. If enough time has passed and you’ve shown a lot of growth they may be willing to expunge so you won’t need to report it on your application.

Edit: My school did something similar (mind you I was not there anymore) during COVID as students caught without masks were immediately given an IA. Can’t really speak on things in your case but things do happen.

 

[GoSpursGo]

Take a couple gap years, try to be involved in your campus in ways that let you learn from the mistake. During that time, reach out to your program at the start of the year you plan to apply. If enough time has passed and you’ve shown a lot of growth they may be willing to expunge so you won’t need to report it on your application.

Edit: My school did something similar (mind you I was not there anymore) during COVID as students caught without masks were immediately given an IA. Can’t really speak on things in your case but things do happen.

That is a completely different scenario. There is zero chance that a cheating IA would be expunged, with some exceptions for schools that blanket expunge everything after a certain period of time--but those are usually much longer timeframes, like 5-10 years after graduation. Not to kick the OP when they're down but I wouldn't encourage them to engage in magical thinking. If the OP is planning to apply in any reasonable timeframe that will allow them to use the MCAT, is going to have to be reported.

OP I echo what everyone else says. You'll need to take at least one if not two gap years before applying (so a total of 2-3 years from graduation to matriculation). Anything you can do to demonstrate remorse and that you take ethics and academic integrity would be beneficial. Your career is not over, but you need to take this seriously and figure out a game plan for how to recover.

 

[PickaGodnPray]

That is a completely different scenario. There is zero chance that a cheating IA would be expunged, with some exceptions for schools that blanket expunge everything after a certain period of time--but those are usually much longer timeframes, like 5-10 years after graduation. Not to kick the OP when they're down but I wouldn't encourage them to engage in magical thinking. If the OP is planning to apply in any reasonable timeframe that will allow them to use the MCAT, is going to have to be reported.

Not giving any hope, just trying to give options. Worst thing that comes from that convo is “no we won’t expunge it” and he’s in the same boat. Still best to use all options. I don’t think anything comes of it and already made it clear they’re gonna need a lot of time and to demonstrate a lot of growth.

 

[eigen]

Not giving any hope, just trying to give options. Worst thing that comes from that convo is “no we won’t expunge it” and he’s in the same boat. Still best to use all options. I don’t think anything comes of it and already made it clear they’re gonna need a lot of time and to demonstrate a lot of growth.

FWIW, it's not clear (and often debated) whether you have to report expunged incidents or not. The language doesn't ask if it's still in your file, just if it happened.

You can find lots of pieces written on the wording, the ethics, and the likelihood of getting caught.

::edit:: Nevermind- AMCAS officially changed policy for this cycle. Institutional Action. This is a nice change, although it's going to mean that the same action (cheating) at different schools will be reported differently to AMCAS depending on how the school handled it, which I'm not a huge fan of.

 

[LizzyM]

FWIW, it's not clear (and often debated) whether you have to report expunged incidents or not. The language doesn't ask if it's still in your file, just if it happened.

You can find lots of pieces written on the wording, the ethics, and the likelihood of getting caught.

::edit:: Nevermind- AMCAS officially changed policy for this cycle. Institutional Action. This is a nice change, although it's going to mean that the same action (cheating) at different schools will be reported differently to AMCAS depending on how the school handled it, which I'm not a huge fan of.

That's been the case for alcohol for years.... although I think that adcoms treat alcohol infractions differently from cheating IAs. Some schools would expel a student who broke a rule about alcohol consumption and others would create a lesser IA and still others admit the intoxicated student to the infirmary where everything is protected under HIPAA and there is no IA at all.

With cheating... the concern is that someone who cheated in college will cheat in med school and be dishonest in practice. Sometimes I think that the cheater who is caught might not do it again while the one who goes undetected will continue unabated. To me, that is the real concern.

 

[PickaGodnPray]

With cheating... the concern is that someone who cheated in college will cheat in med school and be dishonest in practice. Sometimes I think that the cheater who is caught might not do it again while the one who goes undetected will continue unabated. To me, that is the real concern.

Everyone has cheated at some point in their life if you ask me (mine was second grade spelling test), but when you get caught is when you stop. Purely hypothetical of course.

 

[eigen]

With cheating... the concern is that someone who cheated in college will cheat in med school and be dishonest in practice. Sometimes I think that the cheater who is caught might not do it again while the one who goes undetected will continue unabated. To me, that is the real concern.

Yeah. And a lot of schools have policies that a single infraction for cheating / plagiarism / academic dishonesty will be wiped from your record if you keep it clean for the rest of your time at the school. Others never take it off.

I do agree the policies have been more varied for behavioral IAs, but I don't like the ability of schools to put the finger on the pulse with academic integrity issues.

 

[Goro]

Junior year of undergrad. This happened in the 4th week of this semester.

You're old enough to have known better. You cheated because you were stressed out and tired from your MCAT prep? That's not the type of cheating I like to read about, personally.

I don't think your medical career is over, but it is definitely in a state of Deep stasis. Join your school's honor society, and engage in service to others, and or gain positions of responsibility, like being a teacher.

And learn better coping mechanisms

 

[Anthodite]

OP doesn't need specialty medical psychiatric care, a psychiatrist would not be the next best step in management. Totally fine to work through this with some sort of therapist, however. That would mean a psychologist (PhD, PsyD), licensed clinical social worker (LCSW and in some states LICSW), or other master's level counselor (LPC, LMFT, etc.)

The reason I mentioned psychiatry is because depending where OP lives either type of provider is booked up and not accepting clients. In my metropolitan area there is not a therapist available without a months long waitlist.

I’m not a professional, just someone who’s had to navigate psychiatric and psychological help. So I know that sometimes it’s easier to find a psychiatrist/psychiatry provider that can help OP navigate other resources until a therapist becomes available. Generally I find the best place to go is a mental health practice that has both working together so referrals don’t become a headache.