Ucas

braken2000

Good Morning everyone,

Just a quick questions to everyone, and apologies if this is in the wrong place.

I have just had an email from UCAS stating that I have copied parts of my Personal Statement. It is original work and I have had people help me with parts of it (with help from forums like this for example).

Will this effect me in terms of offers etc?

Thanks in advance

brians_daughter

I imagine that it would! If they think you are guilty of plagiarism I would be suprised in the uni/s would be made aware as well.

Maybe worth looking at what they think you have copied if it is a line that contains many common words you may be ok, but if its massive chunks I think you may be in the smelly stuff... a quick call to UCAS may be in order to clear things up?

From UCAS website...
Notification that a report has been sent to HEIs
If Copycatch identifies a significant level of similarity in your personal statement and the Verification staff decide to inform the HEIs you have applied to, you will be notified by email, if you have a verified email address. This email will include instructions explaining how you can view the output of the detection program by using Track, including access to a frequently asked questions (FAQ) section giving advice and guidance.
The report sent to you is identical to the report sent to the institution. It will display your personal statement marked up to identify sentences similar to others in the Copycatch system. We use four colours (see below) to indicate significant matches with other statements and grey to show sentences which have not been found to match.
Within matched sentences, words in your sentence which are different from the one matched with it by the program are highlighted in black. Underlined black is used to show that the word is related but not identical.

braken2000

There are large chunks (well 4) that is highlighted bright red. I took advise from someone who said they re-worded it but it looks like they have just given me snippetts from their one they have submitted previously. :-S

Oldernotwiser

braken2000 wrote: »

There are large chunks (well 4) that is highlighted bright red. I took advise from someone who said they re-worded it but it looks like they have just given me snippetts from their one they have submitted previously. :-S

". It is original work"

Don't you think these statements are rather contradictory?

soolin

I think this also brings up another point. If a personal statement has been made that has been. party plagarised or is so generic that it triggers a claim of plagarism then it surely is no good at all as a personal statement?

My third son is going through uCAS at the moment and spent several weeks doing and redoing his personal statement. Although the head of 6th form proof read it and suggested a few minor changes the school were very quick to point out that this statement must be personal. In fact his statement is so 'personal' that despite my 3 sons being extremely close in age there is no way they could use the statement as it makes no sense unless it is applied to No 3.

I'm sorry, I'm probably not making any sense, but basically I would urge you if at all possible to ask whether you can rewrite the statement but make it relate to you, not to a generic '17 year old.

giantmutantbroccoli

Yes it will affect your offers - I doubt you'll get any if they pass that information on. Contact them asap and find out what you can do about it!
If you posted your statement online to get advice about it that could be why they think it's plaigerised. They won't check who posted what, they will just think "Oh look, theres the almost/exact same personal statement on the internet, that will be where this person has got theirs from." If you can find it with google, so can they. If you didn't delete the thread/posts afterwards this could be your problem! I'd explain to them that you posted it on a student forum for help, and ask what you can do. You might have to rewrite it.

I'm not sure I understand your other post. Did someone reword YOUR personal statement for you, to make it sound better (i.e. editing for grammar, spelling and phrasing) or did someone reword THEIR personal statement so that you could use it? If it's the latter, that's a really bad way of writing one of these things even if you don't get caught out. Like others have said, it's a personal statement. There shouldn't be any generic filler stuff that could apply to anyone, it has to be about you specifically.

amy_lou_4

It sounds like, somebody who helped the OP with their personal statement looked at their own personal statement to help them. They gave the OP some material to put in their statement, saying that they had re-worded what they wrote in their own one. However, they either did not do this, or did not change *enough*, and thus these sentences match up in the UCAS database of previous personal statements with that of the OP's friend.

OP, did you actually receive all the information described by briansdaughter? It sounds like they will point out where plagiarism is suspected and what you can do to sort it, if there are FAQs on the site.

I hope it works out for you, that you are able to remedy this and make a new, even more personal, personal statement!

The_One_Who

Even though I think we've all used someone else's work for some inspiration or to see how to go about formatting the piece, that's different from actually copying something. But did the OP know the 'proof-reader' had copied it from somewhere else?

I have given my work to someone else to read over, largely to see if it makes sense to someone other than me. Personal experiences are usually quite generic, school students don't often have much of any significance to say.