Confused about my situation with IA

[GatsbyK]

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Hey all,

I am trying to complete the AMCAS at the moment and have been having a hard time getting a straight answer from both the offices in my school and from the AMCAS program itself about my situation.

Basically I was accused of academic dishonesty in my Biology Lab, because of the similarity of the works cited / bibliography portion of the lab. Long story short, I matched sources similar to some other kids bibliography / works cited page. (However, the actual paper had no matches). I state my case to my academic department and I was found NOT GUILTY of said charges.

My school has stated that they do have a paper trail record leading up to the not guilty verdict. AMCAS did not know what to do, first they told me its not a IA, then they told me to put it down anyway, at this point I am thinking about putting it down, because I rather tell them that I was found not guilty rather than putting down no and be penalized.

Has anyone else also been in my situation? If so did you disclose?




TL;DR - I was accused of academic dishonesty, appealed found not guilty. Paper trail exist dont know if I should disclose on AMCAS.

 

[EnginrTheFuture]

Hey all,

I am trying to complete the AMCAS at the moment and have been having a hard time getting a straight answer from both the offices in my school and from the AMCAS program itself about my situation.

Basically I was accused of academic dishonesty in my Biology Lab, because of the similarity of the works cited / bibliography portion of the lab. Long story short, I matched sources similar to some other kids bibliography / works cited page. (However, the actual paper had no matches). I state my case to my academic department and I was found NOT GUILTY of said charges.

My school has stated that they do have a paper trail record leading up to the not guilty verdict. AMCAS did not know what to do, first they told me its not a IA, then they told me to put it down anyway, at this point I am thinking about putting it down, because I rather tell them that I was found not guilty rather than putting down no and be penalized.

Has anyone else also been in my situation? If so did you disclose?


TL;DR - I was accused of academic dishonesty, appealed found not guilty. Paper trail exist dont know if I should disclose on AMCAS.

Step 1) Contact your dean of student affairs and/or the faculty head of your honor council immediately. Address the exact question below and get written documentation of their interpretation of what you received:

"Were you ever the recipient of any institutional action by any college or medical school for unacceptable academic performance or conduct violation?"

There needs to be an official yes or no answer from them.

Step 2) After you have contacted the dean and spoken with them... THEN speak with AMCAS and get written documentation from them acknowledging your decision to disclose/not disclose is valid.

These are the people that know what the correct decision is. They have to be able to give you a definitive answer to a Yes or No question. As long as you document that you went to the experts and you did what they told you was appropriate, I cannot imagine anything would come of it.

I do not even think this is a matter of "should I disclose this or not" more-so than a "was this institutional action or not". Follow directions. Disclose institutional actions, don't disclose non-institutional actions.

 

[GatsbyK]

Thank you for the reply EnginrTheFuture, your advice helped me out greatly. I went to the dean of students office and they sent me to the appropriate office to check my disciplinary file. From here I found a big twist.

From what they have told me I actually have only 2 things on file (neither deals with the IA of academic dishonesty case). They also told me they do not send anything that is found not guilty against me, so that is a sigh of relief because a IA for academic dishonesty is a big wound on applications.

So regarding the other two IA they are for parties I had at my dorm. One I was found not guilty since my roommate took a hit for all of us. Another was back in sophomore year where I was supposedly "written up" but I received no letter of warning or any type of infraction statement. I was having a party that ended pretty early in the night. One of my friends friend passed out in my room, as they went to leave they were going out of the dorm into a lounge area in the building. RA's got notified because he started foaming and next thing you know, RA barges into my room, there was no noise or any type of complaint that could warrant them to come into the rooms. Long story short, I did not know I had this infraction on me until today, where I requested documents from this IA and I told them I received no letter or warning to talk to the RHD at the time.

I know that no IA would be better, but I have a IA for "safe conditions, guest infractions (over amount of guest per room), and alcohol" at the moment, is this a killer to my apps?

 

[ericksonj15]

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