High School Honor Code Violation

[positivivous]

Hello everyone,

I'm a second year student at *insert university name here* and I've been worried sick for the past few years about something that, I feel, severely reduced my chances of getting into any medical school even before I started college.

I took a college class at my high school in which I was performing extremely poorly. I had been accepted to that university and they were threatening to revoke my admission (but would not tell me till the summer whether they would or not) if I did poorly in the class (I was not able to receive any help in the class because the institution was far away for me, and I was a high school student). With the added stress and everything surrounding the incident, the last quiz of the semester came up. Through a series of extremely ill-thought out events that I am extremely ashamed of, I brought a sheet to the test that had one practice problem on it, in my handwriting.

I took the exam and at the end of it, my facilitator for the class picked it up and mailed the sheets to the institution.

I went to the advisory board for having notes during the exam and I received an IA under my name. Since I was in high school and they couldn't do much, they gave me the lowest form of IA that the school could. Nonetheless, it is official.

I understand what I did was extremely, extremely, stupid. Those months leading into college were some of the most stressful months of my life, surrounding by hundreds of email threads talking to the admissions office of the university I had committed to (which now knew that I did extremely poorly on the class AND had received an honor code). Needless to say, I have never since done anything of the sort. I feel that I have grown immensely from the mistake and that it has truly made me a better person as a result.

Thus, I went into college (I went to the same university where I received the honor code) with an extremely low GPA and an honor code.

Since then, I have received all 4.0 semesters and I am an officer of two important medical organizations. I work as a scribe and am in a service fraternity and have been involved in very interesting and fulfilling research. I plan to get more officer positions and shadow other specialties (DPM, DO).

I was wondering how terribly this affects my chances. I understand if you all feel like I have no chance of getting in anywhere. I hope to get into MD school (long-shot, I know) by the end of my four years, but I am seriously considering DO and DPM as well. I would be willing to take one or two gap years as well if that does not work out.

Any comments will be useful. No matter what happens, my aspirations to becoming a great doctor will not be deterred.

TLDR; I have an IA at a college because I cheated on a college class that I took when I was in high school. I'm extremely remorseful and have shown an upward trend since then--how will this affect me?

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[sephora89]

Lucky for you medical schools don't care about high school IAs. Don't worry about it anymore.

 

[positivivous]

Lucky for you medical schools don't care about high school IAs. Don't worry about it anymore.

The IA is on my college record because it happened with a college class. I was just in high school when I took the class.

 

[sephora89]

The IA is on my college record because it happened with a college class. I was just in high school when I took the class.

Wow, if it had been in a non-college class you wouldn't have had to report it. I think medical schools will understand that it was awhile back and you have learned from your mistake. By the time you apply it will have happened 4-5 years ago and I'm willing to bet there will be many schools willing look past the incident given your excellent record since then. There are some SDNers who have reported getting into medical school despite having an academic IA. Best of luck. I'm sure things will work out.

 

[Pagan FutureDoc]

Ok, so you have an IA for cheating (regardless how the school classified it you cheated) but it will be nearly 4 years old by the time you apply and it's the actions of your 17-18 year old self.

You will have to address it and own up to what you did wrong. Stress what you've learned from it. If you've shown people can rely on you from your ECs this shouldn't be more than a stumbling block for you.

 

[piii]

Such a long post when adcoms won't even look at the name of the high school you went to. They don't see those records.

 

[positivivous]

Such a long post when adcoms won't even look at the name of the high school you went to. They don't see those records.

It's on my college record because it was a college class. I double checked and I have an IA at the university, I just took the class in high school. I don't have a mark on my transcript, however, because it was a warning (still filed in my disciplinary record).

 

[ortnakas]

Don't do it again, obviously. I think if you apply at 22 with the history of making a bad decision at 17, some schools will forgive it. If it's a pattern, you're SOL.

 

[Goro]

What happened in high school stays in high school.

Hello everyone,

I'm a second year student at *insert university name here* and I've been worried sick for the past few years about something that, I feel, severely reduced my chances of getting into any medical school even before I started college.

I took a college class at my high school in which I was performing extremely poorly. I had been accepted to that university and they were threatening to revoke my admission (but would not tell me till the summer whether they would or not) if I did poorly in the class (I was not able to receive any help in the class because the institution was far away for me, and I was a high school student). With the added stress and everything surrounding the incident, the last quiz of the semester came up. Through a series of extremely ill-thought out events that I am extremely ashamed of, I brought a sheet to the test that had one practice problem on it, in my handwriting.

I took the exam and at the end of it, my facilitator for the class picked it up and mailed the sheets to the institution.

I went to the advisory board for having notes during the exam and I received an IA under my name. Since I was in high school and they couldn't do much, they gave me the lowest form of IA that the school could. Nonetheless, it is official.

I understand what I did was extremely, extremely, stupid. Those months leading into college were some of the most stressful months of my life, surrounding by hundreds of email threads talking to the admissions office of the university I had committed to (which now knew that I did extremely poorly on the class AND had received an honor code). Needless to say, I have never since done anything of the sort. I feel that I have grown immensely from the mistake and that it has truly made me a better person as a result.

Thus, I went into college (I went to the same university where I received the honor code) with an extremely low GPA and an honor code.

Since then, I have received all 4.0 semesters and I am an officer of two important medical organizations. I work as a scribe and am in a service fraternity and have been involved in very interesting and fulfilling research. I plan to get more officer positions and shadow other specialties (DPM, DO).

I was wondering how terribly this affects my chances. I understand if you all feel like I have no chance of getting in anywhere. I hope to get into MD school (long-shot, I know) by the end of my four years, but I am seriously considering DO and DPM as well. I would be willing to take one or two gap years as well if that does not work out.

Any comments will be useful. No matter what happens, my aspirations to becoming a great doctor will not be deterred.

TLDR; I have an IA at a college because I cheated on a college class that I took when I was in high school. I'm extremely remorseful and have shown an upward trend since then--how will this affect me?

 

[positivivous]

What happened in high school stays in high school.

It's on my college record.

 

[positivivous]

Don't do it again, obviously. I think if you apply at 22 with the history of making a bad decision at 17, some schools will forgive it. If it's a pattern, you're SOL.

Yeah there's no way I'm going to do it again. Not only is it dumb and wrong, it's just cheating myself at this point with my major courses.

 

[Goro]

Check the box, own it, explain it, and you should be fine.

It's on my college record.

 

[positivivous]

Ok, so you have an IA for cheating (regardless how the school classified it you cheated) but it will be nearly 4 years old by the time you apply and it's the actions of your 17-18 year old self.

You will have to address it and own up to what you did wrong. Stress what you've learned from it. If you've shown people can rely on you from your ECs this shouldn't be more than a stumbling block for you.

Do you know if some schools will require me to get a LOR from that professor? That professor knew nothing about me besides that I was a random student from a random high school. He didn't even know what I looked like.

 

[Mad Jack]

Keep your nose clean until you apply and it'll probably be fine. Don't screw up again.

 

[heybubbaa]

Do you know if some schools will require me to get a LOR from that professor? That professor knew nothing about me besides that I was a random student from a random high school. He didn't even know what I looked like.

They may require a Dean's Letter, if anything. But they won't want a LOR from that professor (unless you were planning on getting a letter from him anyway).