Medical When should I apply or what should I do after IA junior year?

[Goro]

I am a senior and will graduate in 2021. I have an academic dishonesty conduct in 2019 and will be suspended for the fall semester. My gpa is 3.5 and science is also 3.5. My MCAT is 514. I have great volunteering shadowing and extra curricular. I know I did wrong and I own it and will enclose it in my application. I just wanna ask you what should I do to make things better. I am old and I am planning to apply 2021-2022 cycle of AMCAS or/and special master program. What should I do and what are my chances? I am interested in both MD/DO

What was the nature of the IA? So you committed the infraction when you were a Junior?

I took a picture of exam and posted on a website to get the answer. Yes, I committed when I was a junior. I am a senior now.

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[Mr.Smile12]

Own it, always disclose it, and accept any consequences. Can't guarantee how adcoms will view it, but the recency will put some faculty on edge on various committees, and it might work against you in the imminent cycle(s). Your GPA of 3.5 is high enough that I don't think an SMP is necessary depending on what you took in upper-level biomedical science.

 

[Goro]

This isn't some immature freshman mistake. By the time you're a junior, should know better.

I can't sugar coat this. Your medical career is over. If not, it's in a state of deep stasis.

Don't screw up again.

Work for few years, engage in many acts of service to others less fortunate than yourself, and especially try to have positions of responsibility.

Here is the mindset you'll be facing, as Adcoms will ask:
1) Is this the sort of person we want in our Class
2) Why take this kid when we have so many other candidates who didn't cheat?

My clinical colleagues especially take professionalism VERY seriously. They know that dishonest doctors start out as dishonest students.

 

[Goro]

Yes, I made a mistake. But I also believe that one mistake can't define me as a person. All successful people have made huge mistakes in life. They are successful because they learn from what they did and become better. No one is perfect in this world.

We're not defining you as a person this way, but given that med school admissions is a seller's market, med schools can afford to turn away applicants such yourself.

My own viewpoint is that this isn't some incident where two lab partners are sharing data and reports, or someone who is sloppy with cut and past for a paper and forgets a bunch of citations, your cheating was a direct and overt means that was above and beyond the energy expenditure to cheat. Meaning, you made a serious effort to cheat.

I once told my teenage son (who has a history of making bad choices) that we're always one choice away from disaster. Unfortunately he made that choice, and now his hopes of a military career are gone forever.

I strongly suggest that you work on your Plan B.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I will agree. Taking pictures of an exam question to post online is like taking pictures of a patient without permission. For the latter possibilty, you put the institution at legal liability and breached the patient's rights. In your own actions you breached the test's confidentiality and undermined the integrity of your own academic record. Who's to say you didn't cheat in other classes.

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