Person I helped with his Personal Statement plagiarised mine

so I’m kind of worrying.

For context, I’ve already sent off my UCAS application this cycle and started receiving offers, so I thought I’d help fellow students
On the 6thform subreddit with their own personal statement given I’ve done this process 2x (gap year)

So I showed this person my personal statement so they can understand the structure and what types of super-curriculars. But he then a week later sends in his second draft to me and I see he blatantly copied my experiences , vocabulary like “accrue” and “exacerbate” and unique super-curriculars. I told him about plagiarism and he said fine he’ll change it but now I’m worried if he does send in his PS with areas that copied mine, My application will get affected.

Can anyone help? @PQ @McGinger

Firstly if you submitted your application before his, then it will be his that flags for plagiarism. Your personal statement will already have been put through the plagiarism checker.
Secondly, if it does get spotted, you can show that you did it first and that the activities mentioned are ones you did. Since you haven’t plagiarised, you won’t get in trouble for plagiarism.

How will unis know that I’m the original author? I’ve got screenshots, emails of our chats just in case. And will they tell my uni choices

Hi there

UCAS will inform the unis I imagine. Keep this as evidence just in case. In future avoid sharing notes, work and other materials with other students as it could ultimately put you into serious bother even if you're understandably trying to help - it'll end up putting you and others in potentially very serious trouble at uni.

Best wishes.

I definitely understand now, and will take that on board in the future to not share , even if it is to try and help. Will UCAS therefore contact me?

Even if I already sent in my UCAS application? I’ll still get penalised?

Plagiarism is one of those things that doesn't have a time scale. People who have found out to have plagiarised years after getting a degree may have it taken away from them. I'm not saying this will happen in your case as you were the first person to put it onto UCAS but I would keep hold of that proof just in case. Make sure you make the other person very aware that if they are caught for plagiarising their personal statement they will most likely be rejected by all of their choices - fear is a great motivator

Perhaps but I don't think so. As you said you submitted your PS first and have evidence of sharing it with this individual so you have nothing to worry about as you just tell/show them this if they do question you.

Try to focus on your studies.
Best wishes.

I’ve learnt my lesson now definitely, my only concern is would my application be affected if he did send in his PS with bits of mine copied.

Will do, he didn’t copy word for word, but titles of course and my vocabulary like “accrue” and “exacerbate”. He said he’ll change it but idk :/ , my friends are saying don’t message him anymore but he said he’s going to send it in tomorrow given the deadline is close. And I want to ask him if I can look at it

Plagiarism is one of those things that doesn't have a time scale. People who have found out to have plagiarised years after getting a degree may have it taken away from them. I'm not saying this will happen in your case as you were the first person to put it onto UCAS but I would keep hold of that proof just in case. Make sure you make the other person very aware that if they are caught for plagiarising their personal statement they will most likely be rejected by all of their choices - fear is a great motivator

Just to explain the process, if the % match goes above a certain threshold, (and as above it's fairly high), UCAS report this to the uni choices and it's them that decide what action to take.

Most would approach you for an explanation so if you have evidence of the conversations and timestamped copies of the drafts, then it's likely they would be satisfied.

Thank you so much for the clear up. So I understand the person who has tried to copy me will get notified and their uni choices. But will my uni choices also get notified too? Luckily, he didn’t copy me word for word, but used many of the same words as I did.

Edit: do you know what % that is?

His choices would definitely be notified. For yours, (and @PQ may know better than me here), I believe they would get notified also, (because UCAS don't know who drafted the PS first, only who submitted it to them earliest). But again, most unis that I know of would have a look into it and contact you to discuss.


I don't know if it's as high as the 30% quoted above, but it's in the double figures I believe. UCAS also exclude standard turns of phrase like "For as long I can remember...", so you really have to be quite committed to copying and lazy for it to flag.

Thank you , I’ve been having panic attacks all evening and this has somewhat helped me cool off. He did not copy whole sentences per se, but titles such as “Khan Academy” “wealth inequality” “exacerbated” etc.

I’ll guess I just have to find out soon after the UCAS deadline

You are understandably worried but you have the reciepts so to speak so really there is nothing to be concerned about.

Thanks you for this reassurance, I’m just obviously scared my unconditional offer may get revoked and all this self-inflicted extra stress.