(A cheating incident I was involved in) is essay topic is OK?

Hi :)
I am writing my college essay right now, and I have decided to choose this topic:
Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.

Okay. The reason I want that topic is because I want to write about a cheating incident I was involved in. Basically, I provided answers to a take-home test to my friend partly from peer-pressure and because I was busy. I was suspended for it but it was later lifted and erased a few months after my suspension. I feel that it could potentially be a very personal essay as I have learned to say NO to many things after it, not only to incidents related to cheating, but also to other things that I just plain don't want to do (not giving in to peer pressure). I want to talk about what the suspension meant to me and the stress that I put my family into.

My question is: is this a good move? Will the admission committee look down on me because I was a cheater? Will they truly believe that I have changed? I want to say that I am in the top 5% of my school, and if by writing this, will they think that all my accomplishments were the results of cheating?

Also: since the suspension is lifted, and I am filling in "NO" on the section where it asks if I have ever been suspended what will it mean if I went ahead and wrote this essay?

Thank you

Sincerely,
Phoenix1300

:-)

^It all depends on how you write it.


^Well, I would assume that the Uni is asking for an official, recorded suspension. If your suspension is not official, and not recorded, then I would assume it is allright. However, I may be wrong.

You'd have a problem if you were the one who used somebody else's answers. Providing those answers is another category altogether and, outside of the realm of strictly worded cheating policies, does not make you "a cheater." So, yes, feel free to write about this incident and what you learned from it.

Great, thank you very much. =)

i am one who doesnt believe in "peer pressure" :O lol. i feel ple make their own decisions, so when writing this, make sure it is written well, and you dont end up completely BLAMING everyone else. that will definitely show you havent grown.

mark the no circle since it was lifted. no need to recorded if it was dropped from ur recorded. =] lucky U! lol

it can be a VERY good essay, just do it well.

good luck!!

The willingness to admit to a serious error in judgment is a strength, not a weakness, especially if you can show that you learned something from it that would prevent you from making the same error again. Simone is also right that the fact that you were supplying, rather than receiving, the answers, makes the topic much safer for you. I don't know if there is any ethical difference, but in practice receiving the answers indicates dishonesty, laziness, and probably an inability to do the work oneself. Giving the answers shows intelligence and a misguided sense of loyalty to ones friends. I guess, then, that in this particularly case, it really is better to give than to receive.

Science contradicts you. Human beings are social animals biologically programed to seek inclusion and support from their social groups. That doesn't mean that people don't have the ability to resist the pressure. But the pressure itself is very real.

Peer pressure can indeed be a powerful force. However, it does depend rather strongly on your acceptance of the notion that the people around you are in fact your peers. If you don't view the people around you as your peers, for whatever reason, their opinions will have little to no power over you. If you actually meant that you don't believe in peer pressure (rather than merely trying to say that you don't believe that giving into peer pressure is a valid excuse for behaving badly, which might well be what you actually meant), then it may be that you have rarely found yourself in a group that you identified with strongly enough to feel much pressure to conform to their standards and norms.

^People's decisions are influenced by other activities, surrounding them, that occurred in the past, or can possibly happen in the future.
These influential activities can include people.
Yes, one can stand up to peer pressure. I do it all the time.
However then again, other people feel that they need to succumb to peer pressure, and I have just seen that Simone has given a completely valid explanation as well.



^Well said and well explained. However, I am not sure if Phoenix was going for that kind of an angle or that kind of depth. We shall just have to see in the essay.