Senior Manager
Joined: 16 Aug 2011
Status:schools I listed were for the evening programs, not FT
Posts: 379
Location: United States (VA)
GMAT 1: 640 Q43 V34
GMAT 2: 660 Q43 V38
GPA: 3.1
WE:Research (Other)
Re: UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay
[#permalink]
02 Feb 2012, 11:35
First I applaud UCLA for doing this. Guys and gals who send in essays that are 85% copied from BusinessWeek's list of great B school essays (which I've read to get ideas, but iI still use my own at the end) should not even get into any school. I also agree with the B school to not tell the students this either. They're not students there to begin with, so why waste time on it?
The big disadvantage about these plagiarism checks is that those of us not in school can't check these on our own. We can use some websites to check this stuff on the surface and that is what I have done to avoid such a situation where 10%+ is allegedly unoriginal. IF the Adcom reads one of essays, uses a checker and see that 3-6% is possibly plagiarized, sees the content, which ends up as a common clause, then I don't think it's a big deal. If you write "I love you" or some clause like that, it will show up on some plagiarism database. I think it's content where people get in trouble. Whole sentences, paragraphs, etc.
I don't quote things from JFK or MAya Angelou or Reagan or whoever else. It makes me sound unoriginal, though for some others, it could enhance your essays. If anyone doesn't want to ask what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country, and is dumb enough not to attribute it to one of these three, the applicant shouldn't be admitted, and this saying is pretty common. Oops, that last line is plagiarism....
The one thing about these essays however is that we can't attach footnotes or a bibliography of where we get ideas from either. Also many of the best checkers are restricted to academics and we can't use them to "get an edge" or to "cover our bases". But at the end of the day, we're here to talk about US not the guys who kicked ass on BusinessWeek 10 years ago!