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novanative
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UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay Updated on: 02 Feb 2012, 16:33
Originally posted by novanative on 02 Feb 2012, 15:51.
Last edited by novanative on 02 Feb 2012, 16:33, edited 1 time in total.
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The scary part about it is that Turnitin doesn't let the general public use the service. And the similar essays with similar goals could could be an issue. I did hit one essay and had a 4% plagiarism rate because of one colloquialism. Otherwise I was at zero for my essays, thankfully.

I also used a trial of grammarly before sending out an app for the same essay, and I hit a 2% plagiarism rate because of a couple sentence beginners such as "My goal is to become" or "one area I would like", etc. They told me to cite some random linkedin pages or some random blog post on the internet where the phrase showed up in a comment. These beginning phrases could be in thousands of essays and personal statements for grad school and therefore, that just really can't be true plagiarism, right? There are only so many words and methods one can use to express his or her point. So I think 10% may even be generous too.
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tctc33
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UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay 02 Feb 2012, 16:10
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novanative
The scary part about it is that Turnitin doesn't let the general public use the service. And the similar essays with similar goals could could be an issue. I did hit one essay and had a 4% plagiarism rate because of one colloquialism. Otherwise I was at zero, thankfully.
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Turnitin also runs WriteCheck, where students can pay a fee to have their own papers checked against the database. $7 per 5000 words, so you could just jam all your essays into a couple of files and run them through the system. In a couple of years, this will be yet another pretty much required ancillary cost to applying to business school.
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imalawyer
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UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay 02 Feb 2012, 16:15
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GMATLA
With MBA ethics in question, it's nice to know that some top schools are taking strong stances.
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Totally agree.
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novanative
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UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay 02 Feb 2012, 16:35
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novanative
The scary part about it is that Turnitin doesn't let the general public use the service. And the similar essays with similar goals could could be an issue. I did hit one essay and had a 4% plagiarism rate because of one colloquialism. Otherwise I was at zero, thankfully.

Turnitin also runs WriteCheck, where students can pay a fee to have their own papers checked against the database. $7 per 5000 words, so you could just jam all your essays into a couple of files and run them through the system. In a couple of years, this will be yet another pretty much required ancillary cost to applying to business school.
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THANK YOU!

I'm so doing that with my last application....... though I don't expect any plagiarism rate to be beyond that threshold anyway!

Hopefully my plagiarism rate is limited only to those colloquialisms anyone can say! And they will because I sure as hell made sure I wrote every essay separately!
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UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay 02 Feb 2012, 19:32
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Okay, I signed up with WriteCheck.

The good news is that I have a 0% similarity score with the essays I submitted. Makes me relieved from that standpoint. So it looks like this system doesn't count regular colloquial phrases as plagiarism.... At least from there.

The bad news is that I didn't apply to all my schools at the same time, so if and when my essays go in the database, assuming they all use Turnitin, still a slight chance I plagiarized myself. At the end of the day though, like GMATLA said, it is likely that submitted essays should have our name on it somewhere, so that could save your butts if there's a 25% similarity score because it ties with another essay you wrote on similarity topics on other schools.

**

Also one word of advice for everyone writing their essays. Answer their questions first and foremost and write each essay separately because every school is asking for different things.
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UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay 03 Feb 2012, 12:54
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tctc33


I'm pretty sure when your essay is run through turnitin it is added to the general database (i.e. it is not school specific). I can definitely see this causing matches between an applicant's essays to multiple schools, with the goals essay obviously being the biggest problem. However, they can compare the potentially plagiarized essay to the source material. If it was your essay to another school, it will be obvious since all the companies, clubs, etc. you mention in the essay will be the same. Then the school will just reject you for being lazy, not for being a plagiarizer :lol:

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I don't know much about turnitin but I highly doubt that it's a generic database. And even if that's the case, I would be surprised if schools use it against the applicants if the content is really from the same person.

All the schools know that the applicants recycle their material to some extent across different schools. After all, one person will have only one set of goals/dreams/aspirations and one background and life experiences that shape them into who they are. And they would stay the same regardless of the school they apply to.

And I agree with people who opined that it is the applicant to blame, not the so called unethical consultant. It is up to the applicant as to whose help he/she seeks and what type of help.
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UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay 03 May 2012, 10:01
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Sine I will be reapplying for the next year, I emailed turnitin with queries on how they treat essays written by me if there a considerable overlap across all essays w.r.t. goals, background, accomplishments. They are pretty much the same with the varying ones being specifically different questions, school information/interests, etc. The reply I got back is as follows:

Code:
Hello XXX,

Thank you for your note. Let me make one clarification and then address your question.

Clarification:
Our Turnitin for Admissions solution does not determine plagiarism. The Similarity Index score generated by our solution is a measure of the percentage of the submitted essay that the system was able to find matching text for across our comparison databases, regardless of whether or not the text was properly cited. The determination and adjudication of proper citation and plagiarism are left solely up to the reviewer/school of the essay/similarity report .

Now more directly to your question:
Our solution does allow for “self matches” to be excluded from the similarity index. A self match is when an individual’s admission essay is compared to a previous admission essay submitted by the same individual. However, for self matches to be excluded, a common unique identifier has to be associated with the essays within/across the relevant school(s). Schools determine their own policy for unique identifier usage.

In a case where a self match is not excluded, remember that the system does not make a determination of plagiarism. A reviewer would need to review the match and determine that an issue existed based on their review policy/guidelines.

Sincerely,
XXXX

I may be overreacting but this is still troubling as it looks like the schools get to decide whether "self matches" or the essays you wrote can be excluded or not.

Any information that you can share regarding the policy of schools you know would be helpful.
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UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay 03 May 2012, 10:11
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ga99
Sine I will be reapplying for the next year, I emailed turnitin with queries on how they treat essays written by me if there a considerable overlap across all essays w.r.t. goals, background, accomplishments. They are pretty much the same with the varying ones being specifically different questions, school information/interests, etc. The reply I got back is as follows:

Code:
Hello XXX,

Thank you for your note. Let me make one clarification and then address your question.

Clarification:
Our Turnitin for Admissions solution does not determine plagiarism. The Similarity Index score generated by our solution is a measure of the percentage of the submitted essay that the system was able to find matching text for across our comparison databases, regardless of whether or not the text was properly cited. The determination and adjudication of proper citation and plagiarism are left solely up to the reviewer/school of the essay/similarity report .

Now more directly to your question:
Our solution does allow for “self matches” to be excluded from the similarity index. A self match is when an individual’s admission essay is compared to a previous admission essay submitted by the same individual. However, for self matches to be excluded, a common unique identifier has to be associated with the essays within/across the relevant school(s). Schools determine their own policy for unique identifier usage.

In a case where a self match is not excluded, remember that the system does not make a determination of plagiarism. A reviewer would need to review the match and determine that an issue existed based on their review policy/guidelines.

Sincerely,
XXXX

I may be overreacting but this is still troubling as it looks like the schools get to decide whether "self matches" or the essays you wrote can be excluded or not.

Any information that you can share regarding the policy of schools you know would be helpful.
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Of the three schools I applied (GW, Georgetown, Maryland), one gave a straight up answer, which was Maryland.

1. Maryland's policy on essays is that applicants can't plagiarize themselves under any circumstances, so I can safely determine that any self match will be excluded.
2. GW gave me a vague answer on it, but said that they understand that students will use very similar essays for different schools, if not the same essays. Safe to assume that they will do that too.
3. Didn't ask Georgetown. It was the first school I applied to based on deadlines, so I couldn't plagiarize myself there anyway. Still, their adcom has seen essays that said "I would love to go to the George Washington School of Business next fall" so again, they probably will exclude self matching.

When students sent an essay to a school and write the wrong school name, well, there's also a great chance that much if not most of the same essay went to the other school, right? Otherwise, I don't think there is much to worry about.

The only thing that bothers me on self matches is that this could also give away what other schools we are applying to, and that's not fair if the Turnitin system is that transparent.
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UCLA rejects 52 applicants for plagiarism in their essay 23 May 2012, 18:40
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ga99
Sine I will be reapplying for the next year, I emailed turnitin with queries on how they treat essays written by me if there a considerable overlap across all essays w.r.t. goals, background, accomplishments. They are pretty much the same with the varying ones being specifically different questions, school information/interests, etc. The reply I got back is as follows:

Code:
Hello XXX,

Thank you for your note. Let me make one clarification and then address your question.

Clarification:
Our Turnitin for Admissions solution does not determine plagiarism. The Similarity Index score generated by our solution is a measure of the percentage of the submitted essay that the system was able to find matching text for across our comparison databases, regardless of whether or not the text was properly cited. The determination and adjudication of proper citation and plagiarism are left solely up to the reviewer/school of the essay/similarity report .

Now more directly to your question:
Our solution does allow for “self matches” to be excluded from the similarity index. A self match is when an individual’s admission essay is compared to a previous admission essay submitted by the same individual. However, for self matches to be excluded, a common unique identifier has to be associated with the essays within/across the relevant school(s). Schools determine their own policy for unique identifier usage.

In a case where a self match is not excluded, remember that the system does not make a determination of plagiarism. A reviewer would need to review the match and determine that an issue existed based on their review policy/guidelines.

Sincerely,
XXXX

I may be overreacting but this is still troubling as it looks like the schools get to decide whether "self matches" or the essays you wrote can be excluded or not.

Any information that you can share regarding the policy of schools you know would be helpful.
Show more

When the school dictates the policy for plagiarism then it's as good as blackhole. You won't know what you can expect. There are universally accepted rules for plagiarisms.

My main problem with this is that people will be forced to lie about careers and so on because two or more essays could be similar if the candidates wish to go into the same profession. They will research very similar sources. Although the essays getting caught by the software will be low when you look at small numbers of essays, we could be looking at significant number of cases getting caught for reasons unknown to them when the applicant pool is large. This is basic statistics!

The best solution is to allow students to quote references and explain how research which is readily available is relevant to their pitch!
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