"Extra Essay" - should I mention a C- on my transc

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There is a C- on my transcript, and I am not sure if I should write about it in the "extra essay" sections of these applications, or just not draw attention to it. Obviously I would rather not draw attention to it, but I want to do whatever is best for my applications.

Okay, vulnerability time: the story behind my C-.
My freshman year of college I waited too long to start the rough draft of a final paper for a class. When I went to find my main resources for the paper, it ended up being entirely in French (the abstract was in English... tricky). So I just threw together a rough outline of my paper with relevant quotes, ideas, etc. and wrote an apologetic note at the bottom to my TA stating that it wasn't finished and I hadn't added in my citations/bibliography yet.
Despite that caveat, the TA asked the Head TA what she should do about my shoddy rough draft, and long story short I was accused of plagiarism and given no credit for that draft or the final paper after it... which was a huge part of the grade.
Administrative Board of the school dismissed the charge, there was no disciplinary action, they basically said, "this was a silly charge because you had already said you hadn't added in your citations yet and you weren't claiming someone else's work." That was obviously great, because it was a mistake (THAT I NEVER MADE AGAIN), but my grade had already suffered.

So i have one C- on my transcript, the rest of my grades are between A and B-. Is it worth mentioning? The pros of mentioning would be to show how not-typical it is for me to get Cs and it wasn't just an academic blip but rather a consequence of a bad experience (that I was innocent to). I could also shape it into an essay on lessons learned, etc.
Or... I could just not mention it and not risk them connecting the word "plagiarism" to my name, even though I didn't do it.

Which would be better? If it is of any help, I am applying to Top-20 MBA programs.

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by Jon@Admissionado » Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:05 am
One C- is no big deal, and to be frank, the story is a bit too long and complicated for something that amounts to a single grade. I wouldn't write an essay about it. Skipping it seems wiser to me.
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by CriticalSquareMBA » Wed Jul 31, 2013 4:34 pm
I agree with Jon - the issue here is if you do try explaining it and do a less than stellar job clearly articulating the circumstances, you run the risk of confusing them. Given your story includes plagiarism and disciplinary board review, you're better off leaving the reasoning unstated.

Believe it or not, you're not the only applicant who has had a C or F on their transcript and gotten in :)

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