IA description advice

[elanvidal]

In 2015 I received an institutional action because a fellow student and I stole some wine from an open closet. I have written a description of the incident and would like some feedback please.

"One evening during my sophomore year of college I and my friend were walking through the student union when we noticed an open closet door with two bottles of wine in brown bags. We foolishly decided to take the wine ourselves. The next day the Office of Student Conduct contacted us and informed us that the wine belonged to a local church. We promptly confessed and offered our sincere apologies to the pastor. The Office of Student Conduct and the pastor were both quite gracious and accepted our apology and gave us fair punishments. We were mandated to write the church a sincere letter of apology, attend alcohol training, perform community service, and compensate the church for the cost of the wine. I take full responsibility for this event and am embarrassed by my poor decision to take the wine. While this event was in poor judgment, it also proved to be a valuable learning experience that taught me to think before I act and to deal with stressful situations. I maintained exemplary conduct afterward and graduated with no further problems."

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[LunaOri]

1. How did you know that the brown bags held win? Were you going through the closet looking for things to steal? If so, why?
2. You say this experience taught you to deal with stressful situations. How did it do that?

 

[GoSpursGo]

This is fine, though I would remove the part about learning to deal with stressful situations. A personal pet peeve is when people try to spin a negative into a positive—it was a bad decision and you learned to be more thoughtful going forward, period

This shouldn’t be a big deal

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

OP, the way that you write it makes it seem like you stole from a church. At many schools, this would probably make your application DOA.

I would revise to make it sound less like this.

 

[LeeSin]

OP, the way that you write it makes it seem like you stole from a church. At many schools, this would probably make your application DOA.

I would revise to make it sound less like this.

Yeah, but they did steal from a church according to the university. Wouldn't it be likely that it would be reported like that when the school provides the record?

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

I thought it was the student union. Unless student union is a thing in certain denominations. I thought it was more like a student center, which wouldn’t be good either, but it’s less bad than stealing from a church

 

[candbgirl]

I thought it was the student union. Unless student union is a thing in certain denominations. I thought it was more like a student center, which wouldn’t be good either, but it’s less bad than stealing from a church

I think it happened in a student Union but the wine was purchased by a church for an event. Sounds like the church was using the student Union for some event.

 

[elanvidal]

Yeah, @candbgirl is correct. The event occurred in the university student union, but the wine actually belonged to a church that was located close to the school. I guess they had some sort of arrangement with the school that allowed them to use a room in the student union regularly and they stored their wine in a closet near by. To clarify, I did steal the church's property, but did not know it belonged to a church.

In response to @LunaOri, the closet door was propped open and the wine was on the floor next to the door's threshold. It was in plain view and we could easily see the wine bottles in the bags. Kind of like the proverbial "pie cooling on a windowsill" sort of situation. As to why we took the wine, our school was an alcohol free campus and to our knowledge the school never served wine or had it on-premise. We assumed the wine belonged to another student who was stashing it or something like that and being dumb we thought we could steal it and the other student wouldn't report it since they weren't supposed to have it. I didn't want to try to explain too much about the situation in the explanation, since I don't want to look like I'm trying to justify theft. As to "what I learned from this", I think I'll stick to thinking my actions through and maybe something like "being honest and upfront about wrongdoings is good".

 

[GoSpursGo]

OP, the way that you write it makes it seem like you stole from a church. At many schools, this would probably make your application DOA.

I would revise to make it sound less like this.

Lol he stole some communion wine 7 years ago. That falls squarely under the category of “young and stupid,” but probably not indicative of underlying character issues.

If there’s a way to make it not sound like stealing from church while remaining truthful, go for it, but I’m still unimpressed

 

[elanvidal]

@GoSpursGo, I would also like to avoid that, but unfortunately I obtained a copy of the sanctions letter my school still has on file (my school retains student conduct records in perpetuity and doesn't offer expungement) and it does mention the church in it. I could probably just reword it to remove references to the pastor and other church things, but I would worry that if anyone requested the records after the fact it would then sound like I was being dishonest. Either way, I'm hopeful that this occurring 7 years ago and my career since and other factors would minimize the impact this would have.

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

Some schools will require the actual letter so I would avoid reworking it if it’s in the letter

 

[GoSpursGo]

@GoSpursGo, I would also like to avoid that, but unfortunately I obtained a copy of the sanctions letter my school still has on file (my school retains student conduct records in perpetuity and doesn't offer expungement) and it does mention the church in it. I could probably just reword it to remove references to the pastor and other church things, but I would worry that if anyone requested the records after the fact it would then sound like I was being dishonest. Either way, I'm hopeful that this occurring 7 years ago and my career since and other factors would minimize the impact this would have.

Yeah regardless I would keep the description as succinct and remorseful as possible. I don’t think this will matter unless you make it sound like a bigger deal than it needs to be

 

[nofliesonme]

...Cowboy Code.... If it's not yours, don't take it. If it's not true, dont' say it. If it's not right, don't do it.........Learn from your mistakes, things go wrong, just remember the ride goes on....Cowboy Code solid advice for pre-meds...