<p>My S who will be going into his sophomore year at a public hs recently got into some trouble. He and a few of his cross country teammates on one of their runs got curious and decided to climb onto the roof of their school. While on the roof they found a hatch that they easily opened with a ladder that led into the school. They very stupidly climbed down the ladder and into the school. When they got into the school an alarm went off and the police came. The police did not press charges but the five boys have to do 25 hours of community service and show up at juvenile court. If they stay out of trouble for six months there will be not record of this incident. The school is giving them two days of an In School Suspension which is basically sitting in a room for two days and not attending any classes.</p>
<p>All five boys are great kids with absolutely no history of any trouble in the past.They are all leaders in the school. My son has never had less than an A in any class(all honors). He has been on track for a very bright future. What effect do you folks think this incident will have on the college application process when the time comes? We are in such pain here. Thank you for any imput you can provide.</p>
<p>Sounds to me like a stunt motivated by curiosity and not malice. Surely it will blow over, though I know that you must be hurting and worried. I have a plaque in my office in bold letters that says: Nobody's Perfect. I ease out a lot when I remember to read it!</p>
<p>I doubt very much that it will have an impact on his college application, especially since the police did not press charges and it happened early in his high school career. He will have to note the suspension on his application, and he should explain why he received it. I do not think it will be considered a debilitating mark. Please don't worry so much!</p>
<p>Thank you, momofthree and ccgmom. It was certainly just a lapse of judgement. They had no intention of breaking into the school for theft or destruction. It is such a shock to everyone who knows these boys because of their reputations.</p>
<p>BAD idea to write about it in the essay. Early in her junior year of h.s., my D was persuaded by a friend, who should have known better, to join her & another girl in the "adventure" of shoplifting some bras & panties from the local mall department store. Needless to say, they were immediately caught and led from the store to a police cruiser -- in handcuffs! My D was aghast & hysterical & terrified & much chastened. The girls were sentenced to 100 (!) hours of community service apiece and had their records expunged if they stayed out of trouble for the next six months.</p>
<p>The community service, while onerous, turned out to be a great opportunity. My D was an advanced student of a musical instrument and one of her service choices was to give free lessons to grade school kids who couldn't afford private lessons. She found she liked it and was good at it and ended up, her senior year, making about $75 a week teaching private lessons in her spare time. The other activities all went onto the college application without mention of their impetus.</p>
<p>She did stay out of trouble for those six months & ever after. Her college applications did not mention a word about this unfortunate event, and she ended up getting a full tuition, four-year scholarship to the music program of her choice and graduating summa cum laude four years later. (By the way, the girl who started the whole thing also went on to academic glory and is now working at a government job for which she required a full security background check.)</p>
<p>The moral is: dumb high school legal tangles, as long as they are minor trespasses or shoplifting, are not the end of the world.</p>
<p>After this blows over I would speak with his GC and find out how this will be reflected on his transcript, if at all. If it is reported, the fact that it was early on in his HS career is a plus. He has time to demonstrate 3 years of good behavior and growth. It should be fine. I hope you feel better.</p>
<p>It's always a shock when your perfect child gets in trouble, albeit over silly stuff. I am sure that it will all blow away, and be something to laugh about in a few months. Stop fretting, and enjoy your summer.</p>
<p>At our H.S., detentions and in-school-suspensions stay on the student's record for the academic year in which they happened. Come September, everyone gets a clean slate. (Unless the student was suspended from school, thrown out, or charged.)</p>
<p>I don't think it will be a major problem for the college app process but I do think the fact that several "great kids" thought it was okay to do something this stupid (sorry for the harsh word but what they did was presumably illegal and certainly potentially dangerous) is a bit of a problem and ought to be a reality check. I think sometimes we collectively as parents have a tendency to assume that becuase our children are good students with good reputations and do all the right things that they will never do the wrong things. So I would say that once you have gotten over your general upset and your concern about how this will affect the college app process it might be a good ideal to think and talk about, with your son, the reality that even good kids need to use judgment, even when they are with their good-kid friends; hardly anyone is immune from doing stupid things and these boys are lucky no real harm was done through this particular lapse.</p>
<p>The issue is not whether the suspension stays on the transcript but whether the application form asks about suspensions, convictions, expulsions, etc... Colleges sometimes care more about lying about a problem than about the problem itself, because academic life is built on the foundation of honesty. Lying, cheating, plagiarism, stealing are in some ways more serious offences than getting into fights, for instance.</p>
<p>Blair Hornstine's admission to Harvard was rescinded not because she sued to be sole valedictorian and made herself unpopular among Harvard students before even setting foot at Harvard, but because she was found to have plagiarized. Years before, Gina Grant, a young woman who killed her abusive mother, had her admission rescinded, because she failed to disclose this in her application. Harvard argued that it was not the crime itself that caused the rescission, but her failure to disclose it.
In the Gatekeepers, there is the anecdote of a young woman who wrote about smoking pot. She was not admitted to Wesleyan, which struck many readers, includng myself, as hypocritical, given Wesleyan's rep. But I believe that pot-smoking is a different category of offence than climbing on a school's roof and entering. It is more likely to be considered a case of youthful hijinks than pot-smoking.
To reiterate. my main concern is not whether the suspension will appear on the transcript, but whether the application will ask about such incidents.</p>
<p>Many schools' supplements have a broadly worded question about suspensions, probations and similar disciplinary actions. The question is clearly intended to flush out major disciplinary infractions, but is often worded such that even minor offenses will need to be disclosed. Full and honest disclosure is always the best route (although the example of the young woman in the Gatekeepers is an unfortunate exception to this rule).</p>
<p>Ahhh....one of those 'seemed like a good idea at the time moments'....and we have all had them. This one sounds pretty benign, compared to lots of other stories we've heard. I agree that a sitdown with the GC - (and maybe the principal?) is in order a bit down the road, just to make sure you're all on the same page as to how this would be reported to schools. They may even be able to tell you whether or not this is considered a major or minor infraction - or even if they make that distinction at all.</p>
<p>Remember, burlmom, this will be one of the things you'll tell your grandson on the sly when your runner son is getting on HIS son's case about some bonehead decision he's made!</p>
<p>Burlmom- Painful lesson - but what a cheap one!!! I agree with all the above and am hopeful that such an innocent infraction will not be put on his permanent record.</p>
<p>My son too had a painful, expensive but ultimately cheap lesson as he tested out his car on an empty road doing 100 mph. He always says he gets caught the first time he does anything the least bit off. It's been 2 years and I can't tell you what a careful driver he is after going to court and paying the lawyer and court fees and losing his license for 6 months. I grew up also - I did not yell, lecture or admonish him but stood next to him as he faced all consequences of his actions like the man he has become. Chin up - the sun will come out tomorrow :)</p>
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In the Gatekeepers, there is the anecdote of a young woman who wrote about smoking pot. She was not admitted to Wesleyan, which struck many readers, includng myself, as hypocritical, given Wesleyan's rep.
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<p>Actually, it's a bit more complicated--in an interesting way. </p>
<p>The story was not about a girl who smoked pot. It was about a girl who had impulsively eaten part of a pot-laced brownie a classmate had brought in to school. Other students had also indulged.</p>
<p>What was noteworthy was that the girl in question voluntarily CHOSE to turn herself in and to report her violation of school rules to school authorities. NONE of her classmates (including the girl who had brought in the brownies) did this, and, as I recall, they were not disciplined in any way.</p>
<p>This episode occurred fairly early in the girl's high school career (sophomore year?) and her willingness to turn herself in and accept the consequences greatly impressed her school's administration and her peers, who elected her class president and named her chair of the school's honor board.</p>
<p>She chose to write about her experience and what she had learned in her essay.</p>
<p>Her academic credentials were otherwise marginal for Wesleyan, but her essay and the guidance counselor's recommendation won the heart of the Wesleyan admissions officer responsible for her region. She was waitlisted and ultimately accepted after her counselor advocated in her behalf. (It should be noted that the guidance counselor was a long-time friend and former colleague of the admissions officer.)</p>
<p>She visited Wesleyan in order to make a decision about whether to attend and the book's author recounts that she was struck by the irony of the overpowering aroma of marijuana wafting through the dorms....and ultimately chose to go to Cornell.</p>
<p>Your son will be a HS sophomore this fall. This "painful incident" will be long forgotten by the time college applications are submitted. It will not be worthy of being an essay topic or bringing up in any way nor will it be on his record visible to colleges. There was no vandalism, nobody was hurt, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and received appropriate punishment. Hey, what a coincidence! My S followed some kids onto the school roof also! They were "filming"... and spotted by the assistant principal. They all served a couple of Saturday detentions, no big deal.</p>
<p>Recruit an ally. When it comes time for applications, have a teacher, CC coach, etc. write on his behalf about the incident. He should write as well - in a separate addendum, not the essay (if the college requires disclosure of this) - but it can be very valuable to have an outside, unbiased party reporting about the infraction. </p>
<p>Get lots of applications. Find out which schools don't require disclosure - in some ways, treat it like a bad SAT score. Work around it when possible.</p>
<p>Make sure that his safeties either don't require such disclosure OR are rolling admissions, so he'll know quickly whether or not he is in somewhere.</p>