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.
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.
