IA Question

[einvincible12]

Hello everyone,

I know these questions have been asked 1000 times before, but I am looking for some advice on my exact situation. I have two IAs, one is for throwing a party with alcohol, not very worried about this one. The other is for using AI to write discussion posts for a class I was in, this is my major concern, although having both certainly doesn't help me. Both of these I readily admitted to when I was caught and followed through with all requirements from my school. Neither resulted in any suspension, I had to attend alcohol and ethics workshops for the drinking one, and had to attend a course on academic integrity from the school and got 15 points off my final course grade for the AI one. For context, both occurred in the Spring 23 semester, and I will be applying the 26-27 cycle, so at least I have a bit of time between them and applying.

I understand these are serious and will greatly affect my chances of getting into med school, I fully admit to the cause being I was stupid and lazy, there is no other excuse. How do you all think this will affect my chances of getting into school compared to other IAs that are oftentimes mentioned (such as cheating on an exam, copying someone's homework etc. I have never seen specific AI use discussion on SDN)?

Additionally, what can I do to show that I have grown from this? I am thinking of trying to join my schools honor council as a volunteer, but don't have a ton of other ideas. My stats should be generally competitive (3.85, ~520, EMT work, volunteering with underserved), but I will still be shooting with a very wide net, also I am a TX resident. Does anyone have advice for me and how I should think about this and approach this going forward?

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[Mr.Smile12]

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Both citations occurred during your freshman year, right? I'm also little less worried about the residential conduct violation (alcohol). However, what guidance did the instructor have about the appropriate use of AI that resulted in a viable plagiarism/academic dishonesty citation?

We are closing our genAI use survey among current health professions students soon, and it seems that this is still an area of open discussion. However, relying on genAI to be your proxy in course discussions is an issue of academic integrity. At minimum, don't misuse genAI again, but how we in higher education address this with students remains unclear.

At minimum, don't do this again. Be a full, engaged participant in discussions. Make sure your faculty knows you contribute valuable insight into discussions. Become a TA and suss out when your students are using genAI to replace their own engagement and participation. I'm not sure you need to change your school list strategy based on your institutional actions, but having two citations in your first year may be a challenge for some OOS schools... even if the use of genAI for a similar purpose may not be uniformly prosecuted across all universities at that time.

 

[AJS59]

Don't worry about the alcohol thing. You were young and messed up like any college freshman would.

As for the AI — definitely not as great because it's pushing the boundaries of academic misconduct. But I don't think it'll sink you compared to more overt uses of AI (i.e. to write a whole course paper), plagiarism or blatant cheating. What's been said above: don't mess up again and write openly and honestly.

 

[einvincible12]

Thank you all for your responses. Yes, both of these occurred during my freshman year.

The AI use was to write these online discussion posts where you post something then your classmates respond to it, not an in class discussion. It was specifically called out in the syllabus (now that I look back at it), that AI is not allowed on this portion, so it was most definitely academic misconduct.

I'm hoping that adcoms will give me some grace because of the newness of AI at the time, but I'll still be expecting worse than expected results compared to someone with similar stats and no IAs. Since then, I have not and will continue to not use AI for any sort of assignment and plan to write openly about this and how I learned from these experiences.

During this time, I was in between majors and had definitely not considered medicine seriously and was generally just blowing off school. This is not something to include in the IA essay right? Makes it look like I am making excuses and not taking responsibility?

Thanks again for the responses, I am really set on this path now and just want to do whatever I can to mitigate the damage that has been done already.

 

[Goro]

Hello everyone,

I know these questions have been asked 1000 times before, but I am looking for some advice on my exact situation. I have two IAs, one is for throwing a party with alcohol, not very worried about this one. The other is for using AI to write discussion posts for a class I was in, this is my major concern, although having both certainly doesn't help me. Both of these I readily admitted to when I was caught and followed through with all requirements from my school. Neither resulted in any suspension, I had to attend alcohol and ethics workshops for the drinking one, and had to attend a course on academic integrity from the school and got 15 points off my final course grade for the AI one. For context, both occurred in the Spring 23 semester, and I will be applying the 26-27 cycle, so at least I have a bit of time between them and applying.

I understand these are serious and will greatly affect my chances of getting into med school, I fully admit to the cause being I was stupid and lazy, there is no other excuse. How do you all think this will affect my chances of getting into school compared to other IAs that are oftentimes mentioned (such as cheating on an exam, copying someone's homework etc. I have never seen specific AI use discussion on SDN)?

Additionally, what can I do to show that I have grown from this? I am thinking of trying to join my schools honor council as a volunteer, but don't have a ton of other ideas. My stats should be generally competitive (3.85, ~520, EMT work, volunteering with underserved), but I will still be shooting with a very wide net, also I am a TX resident. Does anyone have advice for me and how I should think about this and approach this going forward?

Do NOT screw anymore, and you should be OK. We were all young and stupid once.

 

[einvincible12]

It was my freshman year, I was 18. I will be 22 at the time of application (and 23 if I get an A and matriculate that cycle).

 

[GoSpursGo]

It isn't great, but I agree that it's good that it happened in your freshman year. Doing something tangible like joining the honors committee is always nice. I also think the way you accepted personal responsibility here reads well. Many times on these kinds of threads we get a bunch of long paragraphs talking about how they had a bunch of external stressors in their life, and the professor wasn't clear on what was or was not allowed, or any number of other plausible excuses for why they made this one time mistake--to me, simply saying that you were young and dumb and you made a mistake that you learned from is the best way to approach this.

In particular, I think as @Mr.Smile12 pointed out, there is a lot of discussion about how much we should allow AI use in classrooms, so I am sympathetic to the idea that the use of AI is a little bit more of a gray area than outright plagiarizing or cheating on an exam--not that what you did was OK, but that I think it's credible that you didn't know where the line was between OK use of AI and a violation as an 18 year old freshman. I don't think this will sink you if you can keep your nose clean.

 

[einvincible12]

It isn't great, but I agree that it's good that it happened in your freshman year. Doing something tangible like joining the honors committee is always nice. I also think the way you accepted personal responsibility here reads well. Many times on these kinds of threads we get a bunch of long paragraphs talking about how they had a bunch of external stressors in their life, and the professor wasn't clear on what was or was not allowed, or any number of other plausible excuses for why they made this one time mistake--to me, simply saying that you were young and dumb and you made a mistake that you learned from is the best way to approach this.

In particular, I think as @Mr.Smile12 pointed out, there is a lot of discussion about how much we should allow AI use in classrooms, so I am sympathetic to the idea that the use of AI is a little bit more of a gray area than outright plagiarizing or cheating on an exam--not that what you did was OK, but that I think it's credible that you didn't know where the line was between OK use of AI and a violation as an 18 year old freshman. I don't think this will sink you if you can keep your nose clean.

Thank you so much!

To everyone who responded here I really appreciate it, I have been very worried about this but you all saying it shouldn't be the end of the world really makes me feel better.