Did I Screw Up Too Many Times?

[Green Street]

I just finished my third year of college as a Math major, and I'm interesting in applying to a Masters of Statistics program. I have a 3.75 GPA, and I've done very well in all my major classes. I have a letter of recomendation from my Abstract Algebra professor and from my Probability instructor. I also have experience tutoring with the Math deparment at my school. I like to think that I'm an acceptable canidate, but I'm worried that I made too many mistakes my freshman year for any graduate schools to consider accepting me.

I took a Sociology course during my second quarter of freshman year and made a giant mistake. A classmate asked me for help on one of our take home assignments. He said he was having trouble with the assignment so I gave him some pointers and let him take a look at my paper. I didn't realise that I was doing anything wrong. He ended up copying a few of my answers verbatim, and he turned the paper in. Obviously, the professor noticed and reported the issue. I had an conduct issue earlier in the year with alcohol in my dorm room, so they went hard on me. I was given a "0" on the assignment, charged with academic misconduct, and put on academic probation for a calendar year. Nothing from either incident is on my official transcript. I did well otherwise. My grades were very good all year. I never got anything below a B+.

Since freshman year I've stayed out of trouble and continued to do well in my studies. I make no excuses for my two mistakes (drinking and academic misconduct). They were terrible things to do, but I was driven by niativity in both of them. I wasn't trying to skirt the rules. I was just dumb and too trusting of others. Can I overcome these issues and get into a decent Masters program or should I consider a different path?

[aberrant]

I personally don't think it is a problem, especially when it is not on your transcript.

When you apply to a graduate program, they tend to ask you all these questions, such as "were you on an academic probation" and so forth. If your answer is yes, they will have give you enough space to explain yourself. Your "minor misdemeanor", imo, should not cause you much trouble to get into a masters program assuming that you will have a good personal statement / statement of purpose, GRE scores, and so forth. If you are worried, you can always ask these director of graduate studies / graduate program coordinator at different schools to see how do they evaluate situations/applicants that have similar experience.

[jeffster]

It's been my pretty consistent understanding that more recent performance far outweighs past performance. If you finished up strongly and also have good letters of recommendation, and none of this shows on your transcript, you probably don't even need to pay much attention to it in your statement of purpose.

[asleepawake]

Academic dishonestly is very serious, but people do make mistakes and learn from them, and adcoms know this. I don't see how this could cause problems for you at all, though, if it isn't on your transcript.

Edited June 11, 2012 by asleepawake