While receiving an institutional action is not ideal, do not panic – each year we have students in this situation who go on to be successful candidates. In these cases, we always give the same advice – full disclosure, honesty, accepting responsibility, and articulating what you learned from the experience are the key components to dealing with your institutional action. In a recent post on our national health professions advising list-serv, an admissions dean reiterated why full disclosure is so important:

1. Fairness - Some schools only keep records of the most serious sanctions, while some maintain records of everything, including one-time alcohol policy violations/quiet hours violations/climbing on the roof. For fairness to all applicants, we want to know about all of the institutional actions, even minor ones.
2. Demonstration of Integrity - We often have applicants disclose a minor incident and when we request information from the school, they'll say "no record of institutional action" which demonstrates that this is an applicant of high integrity, committed to transparency.
3. Trust and Transparency - These are needed in medicine. We want doctors who know how to say "I made a mistake" to patients, to their supervisors, and to themselves.”

Even if an action is not noted on your transcript, it must still be reported. You can discuss this with the Office of Community Standards at Tufts. They will work with you in communicating the matter and walk you through any questions you may have. We understand this can be anxiety producing, but accepting responsibility and showing growth are of the utmost importance here.