Dismissed for plagiarism

juillet
Sat, 20 Jul 2013 00:01:59 +0000

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have an educational “record” that follows you around from place. Each university you attend will keep a record on file for you, but they don’t automatically send it to schools when you apply (and indeed, it would illegal for them to do so). They can only send what you request.

What that means is that your old institution’s record will always have that you were dismissed for plagiarism. It doesn’t get purged with age; it’s not like a driving violation.

I think the first step for you to do is find out whether you can seek readmission at your old school. They may allow readmission after a year away and a compelling argument that you have learned from your mistakes. Talk to the director of graduate studies in your department about your options.

If that’s not an option, your next step is to contact other PsyD programs that you might want to attend - selectively - and ask the director of graduate studies at those programs if your dismissal will be an obstacle to admission. There’s no use in being sneaky about it, as all programs will ask if you have been dismissed so they will find out anyway. You may want to take a year off because many programs will want to see some distance between the infraction and when you will start at their programs.