Academic Dishonesty, Grad School App, Any redemption?

[jackie231]

The summer before my last year of undergrad I committed academic dishonesty in one of my summer classes. I received a sanction of a course grade of 0 and a notation on my transcript until I graduate, which was in June of 2015. I decided to take a year off in light of my transgressions (I wasn't suspended but felt that if I could do something that heinous I needed to take a step back and reevaluate everything).

I'm a psych&stats major and I want to eventually work in research or some related field as I've RA'd at my school and I'm currently RA'ing in a lab at my school and a hospital -  it's something I'm interested in. My overall goal is to find work in research and at some point when I have some career direction apply to a Master's program. However, in light of my academic dishonesty I'm not sure how it will affect my application, or if it's something that's redeemable?

Thanks for reading.

[emmm]

I think if you address it directly, it could be redeemable  -- especially if it is removed from your transcript, but you disclose it (don't applicaitons ask about stuff like that?) anyway. It's tough -- admissions are so competitive, and many programs end up rejecting students they'd be perfectly happy to have, if they had the spots/funding/whatever. But I'd hate to think a mistake made when you're still quite young could derail your dreams. You may need to apply to a wider range of schools and see how things go. Is there someone you could talk to at your current school who might be able to advise you or go to bat for you in a LOR?

[jackie231]

18 hours ago, emmm said:

I think if you address it directly, it could be redeemable  -- especially if it is removed from your transcript, but you disclose it (don't applicaitons ask about stuff like that?) anyway. It's tough -- admissions are so competitive, and many programs end up rejecting students they'd be perfectly happy to have, if they had the spots/funding/whatever. But I'd hate to think a mistake made when you're still quite young could derail your dreams. You may need to apply to a wider range of schools and see how things go. Is there someone you could talk to at your current school who might be able to advise you or go to bat for you in a LOR?

Hi Emmm,

Thanks for responding.

Yeah, I think I can talk to an academic counselor at my registrar's office to get some advice .. aside from that I'm not sure who else I'd be able to consult. I thought about approaching the department heads of the psychology or statistics department because they might have a bette idea of how admissions work or graduate school. I'm not really sure. I've  tried consulting the internet but I didn't find anything particularly helpful. 

[emmm]

You should be able to talk to the Director of Graduate Studies of your current school. I don't know that this person is generally the same as the department head. Ask him/her how they would react to an applicant with a similar history. They might be willing to tell you how their admissions committee has dealt with such cases in the past, and what, if anything, applicants could do to leave them with a favorable overall impression.