Help with unintentional academic dishonesty

AA1946
Mon, 14 Apr 2025 16:44:52 +0000

So I applied to McGill engineering (am Canadian).

My academic background is that I am from Quebec and did 1 out of 2 years of its pre-university college system (post HS), went to Purdue and bagged a 2.3 gpa with 4/15 credits dropped. After that I couldn’t stomach paying US tuition since I wasn’t gaining anything staying in the US worth the money if I was doing poorly so I went back to Quebec and am about to graduate from my pre-uni program (last semester of 2nd year rn).

Apply to McGill is easy, you just have to enter a code for them to access your pre-uni transcript and basically that’s all they use to decide admission. I was planning to apply for extenuating circumstances to explain my academic history (along with some personal stuff that went with it), but my parents had me omit all the Purdue stuff since all they look at is the pre-uni transcript anyways (why show a moment of weakness when you don’t have to is the logic).

Problem is first of all I know that this is academic dishonesty, but I was convinced to brush it under the rug by my parents and it probably wouldn’t have been noticed anyways. However, I used my Purdue Calculus 2 credit to fulfill the my program’s Calculus requirement, so on my Quebec transcript it just says the credit was gained with no other explanation. Therefore, McGill has asked me to explain what happened (where did I take Calc 2 and the grade) and send supporting documents and a transcript if needed. The engineering faculty is currently looking at my app, but what’s even worse is that McGill’s faculty of arts and they faculty of science have already both accepted me to the other programs I applied.

I know that I have to send my documents and explain, but how do I explain myself, I really just made a mistake but will they see it that way? I know that I need to explain, but I really am lost on how to communicate this.

TLDR: went to Purdue, did bad, applied McGill later, parents say no mention Purdue on app, busted