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Ohhhhh! Tough story! (and to be honest it seems a bit exaggerated on the part of your employer, but you may have put them in a "diplomatic" bind).

Anyhow, not to dwell too long on it, but basically you have only (in my opinion) one way to deal with this and that is honestly - come clean about what happened, what you learned from it, and don't dwell on it too much. It will likely hurt your applicant a wee bit, but it will also be brave and honest, and show that you are unafraid to own up to your mistakes.

Thanks a lot for your reply and empathy. I'm so stressed by this occasion during the application process. I'm afraid that the AO will consider I don't have a high ethical standard. In your opinion, to what extend this occasion will hurt my applicant to the top 15 business schools? Is it possible to change this matter into a good one? I have a recommendation from my previous line manager. Does it help? Thank you again!

To what extent? It's really impossible to judge. Because this is a matter of personal qualitative judgement. Some people might say "okay, he was a bit foolish, but he's come clean so I don't care' others might be like "the rules are the rules"... my point being is that you should expect some sort of reaction, which is why your essay explaining this will be ALL important!

Again, its not really possible to quantify how this might harm your application, but you can do two things: 1. Don't worry about it - it's water under the bridge. Just make a good essay about it. 2. Take this into consideration when you build your strategy by adding two more safer schools into your list.

Make sense?

Hi Jon, I'll really appreciate your help! Will write a good essay to explain it. Hope my dream school won't care about it.