TMDSAS/AMCAS Institutional Action

[bunionberry]

So I had already submitted my TMDSAS application on 6/22 and said I had no academic violations or action taken against me. I figured that my incident during last year wouldn't be an issue because even though it was reported to the university, all that happened was I lost some points on my project grades. The office it was reported to said no one would know about it unless they got a subpoena, court order or my permission to access my records. Well, I began filling out my AMCAS application and got to the section about institutional action. Here it is a lot more direct about reporting any incident whether or not any action was taken. So I began wondering if I should report my incident and I decided to. I don't want to get screwed over by this if somehow they find out. My question is, will TMDSAS allow me to change this in my application even though I already submitted? Is it worth bothering them to change it if they can? My explanation for the AMCAS application is below:

During the Fall semester of my junior year (11/2012), I was reported by the professor of a computer science course for unauthorized collaboration. This course required students to work together on programming projects in groups. These projects were divided into two parts: a programming part and a part that asked questions on the principles behind the programming. My two partners and I were unaware that we could not work together on the latter part and so we had the same answers for the questions. It was under our assumption that since we were allowed to work on the programming portion together that we could also work on the Q&A portion together. We received notice from the professor that we were participating in unauthorized collaboration and points were deducted from our project grades. The incident was reported to the Student Judicial Services Office but no further action was taken. I have learned that I should not make assumptions about the work I do and that I should fully understand what is to be expected of me.

Does this sound okay or do I need to be more sincere or what? I'm freaking out about this now because I didn't think this would come back to haunt me. Do admissions committees take this stuff seriously or just acknowledge it and move on? It was a dumb mistake, more of a misunderstanding really, but I wish it had never happened. Thanks for the help in advance.

EDIT: I just saw this on my TMDSAS application for the academic institutional action section: *You will not be able to make any changes to this section once you have submitted your application. Review your entries carefully before submitting*

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[HopefulMD93]

So I had already submitted my TMDSAS application on 6/22 and said I had no academic violations or action taken against me. I figured that my incident during last year wouldn't be an issue because even though it was reported to the university, all that happened was I lost some points on my project grades. The office it was reported to said no one would know about it unless they got a subpoena, court order or my permission to access my records. Well, I began filling out my AMCAS application and got to the section about institutional action. Here it is a lot more direct about reporting any incident whether or not any action was taken. So I began wondering if I should report my incident and I decided to. I don't want to get screwed over by this if somehow they find out. My question is, will TMDSAS allow me to change this in my application even though I already submitted? Is it worth bothering them to change it if they can? My explanation for the AMCAS application is below:

During the Fall semester of my junior year (11/2012), I was reported by the professor of a computer science course for unauthorized collaboration. This course required students to work together on programming projects in groups. These projects were divided into two parts: a programming part and a part that asked questions on the principles behind the programming. My two partners and I were unaware that we could not work together on the latter part and so we had the same answers for the questions. It was under our assumption that since we were allowed to work on the programming portion together that we could also work on the Q&A portion together. We received notice from the professor that we were participating in unauthorized collaboration and points were deducted from our project grades. The incident was reported to the Student Judicial Services Office but no further action was taken. I have learned that I should not make assumptions about the work I do and that I should fully understand what is to be expected of me.

Does this sound okay or do I need to be more sincere or what? I'm freaking out about this now because I didn't think this would come back to haunt me. Do admissions committees take this stuff seriously or just acknowledge it and move on? It was a dumb mistake, more of a misunderstanding really, but I wish it had never happened. Thanks for the help in advance.

EDIT: I just saw this on my TMDSAS application for the academic institutional action section: *You will not be able to make any changes to this section once you have submitted your application. Review your entries carefully before submitting*

Like you, on my AMCAS app I stated the situation, which is very similar to your own (improper collaboration was what I was charged with) and on my TMDSAS I stated no academic violations because it was not as clear. So your post perfectly describes the exact same situation I am currently in. I see that you have been accepted into medical school, so my question is, how did you proceed? What did you do?

 

[bunionberry]

Like you, on my AMCAS app I stated the situation, which is very similar to your own (improper collaboration was what I was charged with) and on my TMDSAS I stated no academic violations because it was not as clear. So your post perfectly describes the exact same situation I am currently in. I see that you have been accepted into medical school, so my question is, how did you proceed? What did you do?

I emailed each Texas school's admissions department pretty much what I have in italics in my first post. I believe only a couple responded back saying something like "Thank you, we'll add this to your application" and the rest I didn't get a response from. Ended up with a few interviews and two acceptances, so it all worked out. No one brought it up during any of the interviews, but I was prepared to answer any questions they had about it if they did. Honestly, you might be able to get away with not doing what I did, but I always had that feeling in the back of my mind of "what if..." and emailed each school anyway to update them on the IA issue.

 

[HopefulMD93]

I emailed each Texas school's admissions department pretty much what I have in italics in my first post. I believe only a couple responded back saying something like "Thank you, we'll add this to your application" and the rest I didn't get a response from. Ended up with a few interviews and two acceptances, so it all worked out. No one brought it up during any of the interviews, but I was prepared to answer any questions they had about it if they did. Honestly, you might be able to get away with not doing what I did, but I always had that feeling in the back of my mind of "what if..." and emailed each school anyway to update them on the IA issue.

The thought of it is literally driving me crazy. Thank you so much! I'm going to email them all, and since it's so minor, I hope they won't make it a big deal. Thank you again.