Need clarifications about cheating/hard plaigarism and how it affects chances in med/grad schools

[SilentAnon_404]

[Long post warning]

So this doesn't apply to me, but there's a lot of rumours about how this affects chances of higher education.

Basically, at at my college (UC Davis), a lot of students got busted cheating online in all sorts of classes, and I mean A LOT.
It has gotten to the point where people on reddit are are considering it not a big deal since every other post on my school's reddit sub is about someone saying they got a referral for cheating.

The way the process works at my college is that when you get reported for cheating, they will put a "Y" on your transcript (instead of a grade) and you will have to go to an interrogation (online) where admins + a bunch of other staff will figure out what's going on.
If you are determined to not be guilty, they let you go and release your normal grade.

However, here is the interesting part:
If you were guilty/admit to it, you will fail the course and get an automatic F. However, they state that if it's your first time it won't go on your record.

Now the debate is whether or not grad schools/med schools will still know about it anyways and whether it will affect someone's chances regardless. People on r/UCDavis are pretty vehement that grad schools won't know/won't care/won't get notified about it.

However, thay contradicts some of the pre-med advice I've seen on this forum, where one of @Goro 's advice threads said that it's game over if you get caught cheating.

Any information clarifying this is appreciated. Thank you.

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[candbgirl]

If you have an IA you must report it on your AMCAS application. You have no choice and In the scenario you described you in fact do have an IA. You have a F as a result of a disciplinary action for cheating. If you don’t report it and you sign your application as being complete and truthful you just compound the mess by lying on your application.

 

[Goro]

An F grade in a sea of A's and B's always raises my eyebrows. And my first thought is that this kid got an F for cheating.

In interviews I will ask about the circumstances.

What I find is when people are put on the spot, they are not good liars either

 

[SilentAnon_404]

An F grade in a sea of A's and B's always raises my eyebrows. And my first thought is that this kid got an F for cheating.

In interviews I will ask about the circumstances.

What I find is when people are put on the spot, they are not good liars either

Oh yea, I didnt even think about that. How often would people be getting F's, especially in something like sociology.

 

[Goro]

Oh yea, I didnt even think about that. How often would people be getting F's, especially in something like sociology.

Extremely rare.
Multiple apps in a single semester are a sign of health or life issues, and are more understandable especially when followed by good semesters

 

[GreenDuck12]

It’s pretty rare to see a high flying student tank just one class. Usually outside circumstances impact multiple classes per term. In this scenario obfuscation won’t help you. If found guilty you will have an IA that you need to report.

Given the number of IA posts, I feel like the premed forum needs a giant sticky post that says “Don’t cheat - take the lower grade. You can recover from a low grade but it’s really hard to recover from cheating.” If someone will cheat on a low stakes undergrad exam for an arbitrary grade, how can we trust them to not falsify medical records or cut corners when the patients pile up during rotations and residency?

 

[ekmf27050]

Someone in my med school class faked attending zoom lectures, and when admin found out, I thought they were going to personally punt the student out of the hospital.

If they see someone has done something similar in undergrad, I'm thinking they'll assume that person is more likely to do similar things in medical school (which will probably have at least some zoom components for a while).