Disciplinary Action, will this affect my app?

On the universal college application, the additional information section has this part where you write about if and why you got suspended or expelled from school. So, in my ninth grade I got suspended for five days after I skipped school with a couple friends to go to a gaming cafe and got caught by the teachers. Honestly speaking, I don’t think skipping school (and this was just one time) was such a bad thing, and I think the suspension I received was kind of an overreaction but maybe that’s just me so I want to know if you think what I did was something that could potentially affect my application. My academics, I would say, are pretty strong (I’m an international applicant so I don’t know if much of much of you are familiar with british patterned education). 5As and1 A at GCSE; three subjects where I scored >90, and one where I scored a 100 for my AS levels. Any help would be really appreciated :slight_smile:

I don’t think it will matter. With that said, it’s important that you understand why it was wrong.

bump

If you describe the suspension and your reaction like this “I don’t think skipping school (and this was just one time) was such a bad thing, and I think the suspension I received was kind of an overreaction” your attitude might be a red flag for colleges. Few colleges are going to consider a single truancy suspension an absolute disqualification, but will be reading closely to see how you describe the event, your ownership and your attitude.

In other words, the truancy suspension probably won’t be your hurdle if you aren’t snotty or dismissive about it. Describing it as your school overreacting over something that was no big deal indicates you either aren’t mature enough to understand the situation or to learn from it, which is something colleges do care about.

As competitive as the international pool of candidates are, why would you think that it would be ok, to say, that the school is overreacting? There will be plenty of international applicants in the pool with no disciplinary history. I agree with @milee30 , it is not so much the suspension, as much as your taking ownership, responsibility and accountability for what happened. This will speak to your character.

Whatever you do, please don’t describe it as a woo is me and the school was making way too much of a big deal over this.

Well yes, I thought that too, which is why I kept those thoughts to myself in my answer. Thanks for the input!

Generally colleges don’t look to harshly on indiscretions that neither harm others nor puts others in harms way. That said, you are definitely coming up short in the remorse department. So in your case it wouldn’t be the disciplinary action itself that gets you denied, but that you didn’t appear to have learned from your mistakes.