Is this an Institutional Action?

[thatguyoverthere]

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[907914]

Hi All,

I know this questions has been asked a lot, but I keep getting conflicting answers. I'm wondering if I messed up by not reporting this as an institutional action.

During freshman year, I was written up for alcohol and had a meeting with Student Accountability. They didn't do anything to me aside from making me attend an alcohol education counseling session, which was like 15 minutes long. No fine, no charges, no police involved. It doesn't show up on my record or transcript, from what I understand on my school's website. Also, it says that they won't report it to schools unless requested to do so by the student. Am I okay in not reporting this as an IA? @Goro @LizzyM @gyngyn advice would be appreciated, thanks so much!

Institutional Action: Medical schools need to know if you were ever the recipient of any institutional action resulting from unacceptable academic performance or a conduct violation, even if such action did not interrupt your enrollment, require you to withdraw, or does not appear on your official transcripts due to institutional policy or personal petition.

Yes, you had a conduct violation and need to report it.

 

[PA_dud3]

Make sure to update every school you applied to with a very brief explanation of this infraction. This is probably under the terms of an IA, so I would go ahead and report it. It will have little to no impact on your cycle.

 

[thatguyoverthere]

Institutional Action: Medical schools need to know if you were ever the recipient of any institutional action resulting from unacceptable academic performance or a conduct violation, even if such action did not interrupt your enrollment, require you to withdraw, or does not appear on your official transcripts due to institutional policy or personal petition.

Yes, you had a conduct violation and need to report it.

The part I'm wondering is if this constitutes an institutional action, however.

Institutional Action - Do I report this?

Hey guys, So I'm filling out the primary right now and stumbled upon this beautiful question: Were you ever the recipient of any institutional action by any college or medical school for unacceptable academic performance or conduct violation, even though such action may not have interrupted...

forums.studentdoctor.net

On that thread, OP's situation sounds a lot like mine, and @LizzyM said it is not necessary to report it. I guess I just need peace of mind for my situation haha

 

[thatguyoverthere]

Make sure to update every school you applied to with a very brief explanation of this infraction. This is probably under the terms of an IA, so I would go ahead and report it. It will have little to no impact on your cycle.

So even though I wrote "No" on my AMCAS app I am still able to update schools (even to those I've submitted to) and it should be ok? I'm an idiot and should have thought of this way earlier. I didn't even think that this was close to an IA until secondaries started asking stuff

 

[PA_dud3]

So even though I wrote "No" on my AMCAS app I am still able to update schools (even to those I've submitted to) and it should be ok? I'm an idiot and should have thought of this way earlier. I didn't even think that this was close to an IA until secondaries started asking stuff

Yes. Gonnif wrote out a very concise explanation in a recent thread that would work for your situation. I will try to find it and update my post with it.

Edit: here you are. May need to alter based on specifics but Im not sure.

"Due to my own oversight, I neglected to include an institutional action I had as a freshman for drinking as an underage freshman. This was a one time incident and I was required to take a class on (or whatever your punishment was). Again, I apologize for this oversight"

Credit goes to @gonnif

 

[thatguyoverthere]

Yes. Gonnif wrote out a very concise explanation in a recent thread that would work for your situation. I will try to find it and update my post with it.

Edit: here you are. May need to alter based on specifics but Im not sure.

"Due to my own oversight, I neglected to include an institutional action I had as a freshman for drinking as an underage freshman. This was a one time incident and I was required to take a class on (or whatever your punishment was). Again, I apologize for this oversight"

Credit goes to @gonnif

Great, thank you! If it truly is an IA, then I will make sure to update my schools ASAP. I just want to clear things up before I go ahead and do so. In my situation, it was a discussion in which the counselor and I just talked about alcohol behavior like making sure I understood the dangers of things like binge drinking. This still counts as an IA? Sorry for the questions - just don't want to get myself in a stickier situation!

 

[PA_dud3]

Great, thank you! If it truly is an IA, then I will make sure to update my schools ASAP. I just want to clear things up before I go ahead and do so. In my situation, it was a discussion in which the counselor and I just talked about alcohol behavior like making sure I understood the dangers of things like binge drinking. This still counts as an IA? Sorry for the questions - just don't want to get myself in a stickier situation!

Wait for an adcom or advisor like the ones you tagged to be certain. They are likely to know for certain, but it never hurts to err on the side of caution. I'm pretty much the least knowledgeable "Expert" here so if I am contradicted just ignore what I said, lol

 

[Moko]

Ask the school directly if your incident counted as an institutional action. If no, then consider yourself lucky for this 'near miss'. If yes, then report as others have suggested here and in other threads. If you do need to report, you will still be fine for the application cycle. Good luck

 

[LizzyM]

If the school says that it will not report it unless requested to do so by the student, it means that they have a record of it. (Isn't that what "written up" means, that they made a written record of your infraction?) If they have a record of it, that sounds like an institutional action. All you would need to do would be to sign a form permitting a school to release your records (which federal law prohibits them from doing without your permission except for some basic directory information) and the cat will be out of the bag. You most likely needed to sign a form releasing your records when you released your transcript.

Going to repeat this here with slight modifications to make it seem less redundant to say freshman twice in one sentence and to apologize once for the oversight:

"Due to my own oversight, I neglected to include an institutional action I had in [insert month/year] for drinking as an underage freshman. This was a one time incident and I was required to take a class on (or whatever your punishment was). I apologize for this oversight"

 

[thatguyoverthere]

If the school says that it will not report it unless requested to do so by the student, it means that they have a record of it. (Isn't that what "written up" means, that they made a written record of your infraction?) If they have a record of it, that sounds like an institutional action. All you would need to do would be to sign a form permitting a school to release your records (which federal law prohibits them from doing without your permission except for some basic directory information) and the cat will be out of the bag. You most likely needed to sign a form releasing your records when you released your transcript.

Going to repeat this here with slight modifications to make it seem less redundant to say freshman twice in one sentence and to apologize once for the oversight:

"Due to my own oversight, I neglected to include an institutional action I had in [insert month/year] for drinking as an underage freshman. This was a one time incident and I was required to take a class on (or whatever your punishment was). I apologize for this oversight"

Thank you for the clarification! Do you think that this will have a big impact on my application? And do I upload this to the additional uploads section of my applications?

 

[thatguyoverthere]

So I just called my student accountability office and they said that they treat my counseling session as educational in nature and not disciplinary. The lady said that they only report probations/suspensions/expulsions and not educational counselings. She said that the only way for med schools to find this out is if I specifically requested for my educational counseling to be released. Even if med schools ask for my records, they will not release my counseling if I don't specify it. Does this mean I don't have to report it as an IA? @Doktor_dud3 @LizzyM @Moko

 

[Moko]

So I just called my student accountability office and they said that they treat my counseling session as educational in nature and not disciplinary. The lady said that they only report probations/suspensions/expulsions and not educational counselings. She said that the only way for med schools to find this out is if I specifically requested for my educational counseling to be released. Even if med schools ask for my records, they will not release my counseling if I don't specify it. Does this mean I don't have to report it as an IA?

An IA does not need to be disciplinary in nature. Ask the school specifically if your incident counted as an institutional action.

 

[thatguyoverthere]

An IA does not need to be disciplinary in nature. Ask the school specifically if your incident counted as an institutional action.

Yeah the lady kept saying my school does not use the "Institutional Action" verbage, which is why I have been so confused this whole time haha. I kept trying to clarify what an IA might mean and she just said that my issue was educational in nature and they don't use the term IA. She said that they only report disciplinary incidents, which mine wasn't. She repeated that the only way for schools to find out about this, she said, was if I asked the office of student accountability to specifically include my counseling. Any thoughts? Sorry for all this hassle haha just don't want to misreport anything

 

[Laradd]

I wouldn't report this. There is no record honestly so what do you think is going to happen?

 

[Moko]

Yeah the lady kept saying my school does not use the "Institutional Action" verbage, which is why I have been so confused this whole time haha. I kept trying to clarify what an IA might mean and she just said that my issue was educational in nature and they don't use the term IA. She said that they only report disciplinary incidents, which mine wasn't. She repeated that the only way for schools to find out about this, she said, was if I asked the office of student accountability to specifically include my counseling. Any thoughts? Sorry for all this hassle haha just don't want to misreport anything

When in doubt, better to be safe than sorry. I would report it. Seems like the institution took action by requiring you to attend counseling sessions. The only time it's completely safe to not report is if the school itself specifically said that they never took action. Again, this will not affect your application. It's borderline trivial and most people would just chuckle and move on.

 

[PA_dud3]

I still lean on the side of report in this case if no further clarification is available, as my superiors have said.

 

[thatguyoverthere]

Got it, thanks all. I'm gonna ask my school's pre-med advisor to see what she thinks. Other students with similar stuff have said that they didn't need to report it, so we'll see what she says.

 

[LizzyM]

It sounds to me like your school has made a conscious decision to protect students from having to report IAs by treating minor infractions of school rules as opportunities for educational counseling rather than in a punative way. Some schools do the same by burying intoxication in a medical record in the infirmary rather than putting it in a disciplinary record.

I think that you have checked with the school and been told that this does not meet the school's definition of an IA. Report it if you want to be on the safe side but I wouldn't blame you if you didn't report it given that the school doesn't consider it an IA. It isn't likely to be a roadblock and unlikely to be even a speedbump on the road to matriculation.

 

[thatguyoverthere]

It sounds to me like your school has made a conscious decision to protect students from having to report IAs by treating minor infractions of school rules as opportunities for educational counseling rather than in a punative way. Some schools do the same by burying intoxication in a medical record in the infirmary rather than putting it in a disciplinary record.

I think that you have checked with the school and been told that this does not meet the school's definition of an IA. Report it if you want to be on the safe side but I wouldn't blame you if you didn't report it given that the school doesn't consider it an IA. It isn't likely to be a roadblock and unlikely to be even a speedbump on the road to matriculation.

Thank you @LizzyM! I checked with my advisor as well, and she said she doesn't think I need to report it as an IA. Really appreciate your advice. If anything, I learned that I should check up on these things way beforehand haha

 

[Mr Doc Turr]

I had the same issue a few years ago and didn't report it. Goro and LizzyM said I shouldn't as my school said there was no record of it, despite having met with the Dean and being initially charged (was later changed to NO charge). It is very likely my school has an internal copy of the incident, which is why I am definitely living with looking over my shoulder now, as I think about it every so often. I am in my second year and still worry someone will pull me aside and bring it up, or worse, have a residency director find out. just thought i'd let you know