I’m currently a junior in high school and my dream college is MIT. I’ve always wanted to go there and I have great qualifications such as grades and almost perfect ACT and SAT scores. As well as numerous other awards and heads of several different clubs and sports. However, when I was a Sophomore I got a 1-day school suspension in the form of Saturday school for making a stupid mistake of throwing a can out a bus window. It is on my permanent high school disciplinary record and I would otherwise be a reasonable applicant for many prestigious universities. Did i ruin my chances of MIT?
Have you met with your high school college counselor yet? This is a good question for that person, since they will have to include the incident in your school report.
I doubt this would impact your admissions chances. You made a mistake, owned up to it, took your licks and moved on. Just be careful to keep your nose clean for the next year and a half. One incident looks like a youthful mistake, two look like a pattern.
It’s certainly a good thing this didn’t happen your junior or senior year, as those are meticulously inspected as opposed to freshman and sophomore years.
On the common app, there’s space to add additional information. You can explain the reason behind the suspension and how you’ve changed since then. Since the reason is fairly frivolous, you should be fine.
This question strikes me as ridiculous in itself. No, you didn’t ruin your chances. If you are seriously concerned, make a note of it on your application and mention that you basically didn’t do anything and I’m sure MIT will not care.
To luisarose: I agree that the question “should” be ridiculous, but it isn’t. Why? Because of the opaque nature of college application process. This guy is obviously concerned, and he has a reason to be. I hope to heck that throwing a can out of a bus window as a sophomore has zero impact. But who knows how these schools look at it? With the kind of pressure that adults and schools put on kids for super high gpa’s, millions of ECs, and funding for school, why shouldn’t he ask the question?
@MitchKreyben: You are probably right about the opaqueness of the college application process, so I rescind my remarks about it being ridiculous.
MIT, however, will probably be fine for this particular case. I don’t recall the application asking for any info on disciplinary action, and if it did, then it was certainly followed by a text box to explain what happened (it’s all kind of a blur at this point). I feel that from what I’ve seen from MIT’s admissions blogs, website, etc., it’s really, really unlikely that they would make a decision to reject someone because they once threw a can out of a bus window. But I can’t prove that.
OP: You are probably fine.
I do not think it will make much of a difference.