<p>I’d say even with the essay, your chances at duke/UCLA/pretty much any selective school are pretty slim.
They don’t want cheaters. They don’t need cheaters. As other people have mentioned above, they are going to assume that if you plagiarized once and got caught, you probably plagiarized other times as well, also because this wasn’t a case of like, improperly citing a quote or something, but a whole paper.
Realistically speaking, if you were an adcom and you had a whole ocean of qualified applicants, why on earth would you take the kid who can’t even write his own essays? This is going to sound harsh, but already, Duke and UCLA are really tough schools to get into, an offense like this will probably mean a direct trip to the reject pile, unless of course you’ve cured cancer, won olympic gold, or donated a building.</p>
<p>Also, I’m not so sure the nature of the first offense even matters all that much: the fact remains you already had a first offense, you knew you were going to be on very shaky ground if you got caught cheating again, and yet you still plagiarized.</p>