Total Honesty vs. Safe Answer?

[drdoodle]

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Hey all,

I got majorly burned freshman year when a classmate of mine cheated off of me (and I honestly had absolutely no knowledge of this), so the prof punished us both by giving us both zeros for an assignment, which brought my final grade down from an A to a C. 🙁

Here's the story: one day I was in the library sitting at a computer next to one of my classmates, who says to me "Hey, I forgot to bring a floppy disk, can I save something on your disk and then transfer it to my computer when we get back to the dorm?" I'd forgotten that I'd saved my final lab report on the disk I'd brought with me, and didn't see any harm in letting her save a file on my disk. She must have seen that I had finished the lab report when she saved her file on my disk, and before she returned the disk to me, she also saved a copy of my lab report on her computer without my knowing. Not only that, but she printed out an identical copy of the report, put her name on it, and handed it in as her own. I think she assumed that since there were so many of us in the class, the prof would never read all the labs closely and notice that two were similar. Needless to say, when the prof called us both in and confronted us our two identical lab reports, I was shocked, hurt, upset. He decided that rather than 1) listen to each person's side of the story, or 2) throw us out of school (we have an honor code), he would give us both 0's for the assignment. 😡

So my question to you all is this: if I'm asked about this C on my transcript at an interview, should explain how my classmate cheated off me without my knowing and we both got burned for it? Or not say anything about it at all? I feel like even mentioning the word "cheating" raises a red flag in an interview, and I definitely don't want that. But at the same time, I would be concealing the truth if I gave a safer answer like "It was a tough semester for me but I later made up for it by excelling in upper level bio lab classes" and left it at that. Bio lab is actually one of my strengths, I worked incredibly hard for that class, I should have earned an A, and I really enjoyed every moment of that course up until that fateful day in my prof's office. What should I say if I'm asked about this grade? What would you do if you were me?

 

[DDSY]

That's pretty tough. I was also in a situation like yours, only that it was in grade school. I had a person copy an essay off of me, with only a single word changed. The only difference is that the teacher believed my side of the story and not hers.

When it comes to written assignments, many times there's a way to determine whose work it is--based simply on a person's unique way of writing, ie sentence structure, choice of words, etc. In your case you were pulling off A's and the other person probably wasn't. In that case she has an incentive to cheat. I think the prof should have looked at your work more closely and see evidence of cheating from the other person.

As for explaining to Adcoms what transpired to give you the C, either ways seem viable. You seem to explain your situation convincingly. Note, however, if I had decent grades and rock the DAT, personally I would not bother with a two credit class, unless we're talking about certain D schools that take the science labs seriously, ie Pittsburgh (which desires a least a letter of rec from a lab professor).

 

[tinman831]

On the AADSAS application, it asks if you've ever been punished for cheating and you are required to answer that question truthfully. So there's really no way to get around it.

 

[DAS]

They wont ask you why you got a C in one class. But if you have other C's, then tell them why it was so. Generally, they don't ask questions about one course grade, unless it was an F or even worse XF. So, chill 👍

 

[jackbauer!]

dude, it's a C! if they ask you about it, then don't mention the "C" word. just tell em you had a rough time with that class & bounced back in latter bio courses.

jb!

 

[54807]

dude, it's a C! if they ask you about it, then don't mention the "C" word. just tell em you had a rough time with that class & bounced back in latter bio courses.

jb!

Yeah. I've got 2 Cs in my engineering courses and they haven't asked about it yet in 4 interviews.

I agree with just telling them you had a rough time and bounced back to finish out college with strong grades.

I had a friend actually get the professor to write one of his LOR stating "XXXXX received a C in the class because a classmate cheated off him. It is official policity of XXXXXXX University that all involved parties be held accountable to deter further cheating and to lessen the opportunity for cheating to occur." Not sure if that helped at all...probably just brought further attention to it all.