<p>Schools have to have provisions when students do inappropriate stuff out of school because many times these actions later impact the school environment. For example, if a student is bullied over the Internet outside of school, it usually continues in school. And, even if your “false threats” were towards another school, it can affect the students at the other school sense of security, something they need to succeed in school.</p>
<p>I heard the author Dan Brown speak about how he came to write his first book, Digital Fortress. He was an English teacher at Exeter, and a student posted a “joke” threat against then President Bush (the first one, I believe) on the school’s intranet. This was long before we all had public internet service, or Sept 11th. The National Security Agency “plucked” the message out of the air and descended on the school to arrest the student. Dan Bwown was so impressed by their spying capabilities that he wrote his first novel about the NSA.</p>
<p>TheLogic: the unfortunate, but truthful answer is that you’re probably screwed. You made a major, major mistake and you’re going to have to pay the price for it. I don’t think being remorseful is really enough: if you’re a borderline applicant and it’s crunch time in a college admissions office, this will be a major strike against you and will probably bump you out of the picture.</p>
<p>OP: Bottom line, you made a mistake and do not bring in race into it. If you had not made that posting and the FBI came after you, then it could be different. You can rationalize that you were punished for whatever reason, but you bought it upon yourself. The quicker you realize that and stop trying to defend or minimize the incident, the faster your recovery will be. </p>
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<p>Yes, I think you went too far. You do not seem to get the point it does not matter what happens to others, what you did was totally wrong. You will get even less sympathy if you try to deflect the situation away from you.</p>
<p>to the OP…</p>
<p>There have been many posts, including my own, on this thread that have tried to help you. We have explained that this incident will affect your record when applying to college but doesn’t have to mean a “no” in admissions if you handle it appropriately. We explained that you have two years now to right this wrong. You need to demonstrate what you have done to turn things around, to make amends, and what you have learned form this experience. Only then can you regain some credibility and trust. </p>
<p>The first step is owning up to what was serious and wrong in the actions you had chosen to take that brought you to this point. But what I see in every post of yours is an attempt to minimize and discount it, rather than take responsibility and recognize why this was a serious matter. Some things have you said (paraphrasing)…"it was only seven minutes of my life, " “lots of other kids do such pranks on the internet,” “it was targeted at another school, not my own,” “it was silly,” “I was singled out due to having lived in Saudi Arabia,” “I was only joking,” etc. </p>
<p>What you should be talking about is how you have now learned that such a prank is not silly, and is a very serious thing in this day and age. Should the school and/or government not take such things seriously? They don’t know at first if it is a prank. If they pick up chatter that someone wants to blow up a school, fly a plane into a building, etc., should they assume it is a joke? There is no way to tell for sure. It is a waste of time and resources to play such jokes about such serious things. You should be recognizing now the seriousness of this matter and the consequences it meant for all who were affected…your school, your community, your family, your governmental agency, and even yourself (your record). You should be explaining the realizations you have now come to as a result of this incident and what you have learned. You should not be minimizing it. Then, you should be doing things to exhibit good citizenship and making amends. You could speak at various school assemblies to teach other teens the dangers of pranks and the consequences of them and also the use of the internet and what can be a negative fallout. You should do volunteer work. Only then, can you get good recs that can speak about how you turned things around after this incident. Only then can you write a statement that shows your mistakes (NOT excuses for them) and what you learned and did as a result. </p>
<p>Right now, you are on the first step and frankly, based on your posts so far, you are not achieving the very first step of recognizing what it is that you did wrong and why it was so serious. Until you can do that, you can’t move to the next step and therefore, you are minimizing your chances of overcoming this when it comes to admissions. If an admissions officer read your posts here that minimize and make excuses, you’d have NO chance at all. You already have a mark on your record but you have two years to turn this around. My advice is start NOW. Think over what we are telling you. Stop the excuses and being dismissive of how serious this was. Learn from it. I’m not seeing that in your posts AT ALL.</p>
<p>I also agree with another poster that it is a bit much to say you were singled out due to your race or nationality and at the same time state that you hate all the people of Saudi Arabia. On the one hand, you want people to be tolerant of your race or nationality and not have prejudice against you, and on the other hand, you just put down an entire country’s population! :rolleyes:</p>
<p>By the way, l agree with others that no matter your race or nationality, threats such as yours, on the internet, will be taken seriously by authorities. It was the threat, not who made it, that mattered here.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/899438-truth-about-suspensions.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/899438-truth-about-suspensions.html</a></p>
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<p>I didn’t say that he couldn’t be a victim of racism, I just said that it was hard to really get away with decrying racism against Saudis right after saying that you hate all native-born Saudi Arabians. I didn’t say that he couldn’t be a victim, but trying to use racism as an excuse seems extremely hypocritical when he apparently shares the same racist beliefs against the same ethnic group that he blames for all of his problems! You don’t see how that’s a little twisted? Sort of like a member of the Klan blaming racism against blacks for all of his problems! </p>
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<p>Exactly. I’m not going to lie and say that people who even look Middle Eastern aren’t singled out for unfair scrutiny in our society sometimes, but when you actually go out and make a terror threat you won’t escape notice by the authorities. The Hutaree militia that just made the news this past week is certainly proof of that!</p>
<p>What the OP should be saying is something along the lines of…
"Wow, I never realized how joking and creating a prank could result in serious consequences! What seemed funny at the time really affected many people, including myself. I got expelled and have a bad mark on my record that I will have to overcome. My school and community lost trust in me and will doubt me for some time until I can regain some credibility (heard of the boy who cried wolf?). I caused a lot of hassles for the FBI for them to have to waste time investigating my prank (which they SHOULD do as who knows in today’s society with all the terrorism, as well as attacks on schools, what is a serious threat or not). In today’s climate, terrorism is not a laughing matter to be joked about. I caused fear at my school which is a shame.</p>
<p>I now see how a joke can cause harm. While I was deriving some thrill with the prank, others were seriously concerned and I caused that. And I now have had to suffer consequences for my actions and it wasn’t worth it at all. It was a hard lesson I am learning the hard way. I used poor judgement but it has been a good learning experience to realize that there are consequences for everything and I should have thought first about all that, rather than the fun I thought I was having. </p>
<p>I hope I can make it up to my community and my family. I hope I can show others what a good person I am. I don’t want that one instance of poor judgement to define me as a person. It is going to take a lot of work to make up for that seven minutes. It could take 700 hours to demonstrate remorse, what I learned and to show my positive side. I hope i can pass on what I learned about doing something stupid like this to my friends so this never happens to them. I hope in good time, I can do the work to turn this around. I know that won’t come automatically. I’m going to have to start now to apologize and to make up for this big mistake I made."</p>
<p>TheLogic, you are NOT seeing your mistake, still. Pls reread soozievt’s posts. You need to recognize your mistake, as a mistake. It was not as a joke. And the mistake is not that you got caught, but that you did such foolishness in the first place. Your post:
And it does not matter who you are or where you are from. The computer doesn’t know your nationality. It was all about certain words in your message that tipped them off: school, terror, and a few links. Don’t try to make yourself into a victim here.</p>
<p>TheLogic – From reading the chain of your posts here, I’m not getting the sense that you are feeling much remorse for what you did. I am getting the sense that you feel remorse that you got caught and that it cost your parents a lot of money, got you kicked out of school and might hurt your chances of getting into college. After all, your initial post here was asking us not, “How do I get into college despite my expulsion?” or “How do I tell colleges about my mistake?” but rather “How do I hide the expulsion?”</p>
<p>Your follow-up comments bashing your lawyer, saying you hate all Saudis and complaining about your parents’ finances – news flash! $250K/year is wealthy by most people’s standards – digs you into a deeper hole and just makes you sound spoiled, selfish and immature. </p>
<p>Do you really want to go to college? Here’s what to do. Face the fact that you made a huge, colossal, life-altering mistake that not only screwed you, but hurt others, screwed your family and likely your future. Maybe you didn’t mean to do it, but you did. You can continue to blame others or you can face it and learn from it. </p>
<p>As others have said, you can’t hide from this and college admissions counselers will know you were expelled. The ONLY way you can get around it is to go through it. Show the colleges what you’ve learned (and, no, “lawyers suck” and “I hate Saudis” doesn’t count). Colleges will be impressed that you f-ed up and were mature enough to see the error of your ways and grow from your screw up.</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
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No one should be giving the OP ideas for his eventual Remoseful Essay. The thoughts should come from him.</p>
<p>^ Also he should NOT say that he didnt’ know “joking and creating a prank” could result in serious actions. It trivializes what he has done, and makes it seem like he’s trying to down play it rather than take responsiblity for it. Also it suggest that he doesn’t have an understanding of the relationship between action and consequence, which does not show remorse, it shows that he doesn’t understand why he was punished really.</p>
<p>Thank you ALL for your great advice, especially soozievt, gardna, CTTC, goaliedad, northstarmom, bigtrees, smithie, and everyone else who gave me the great advice and helped me to understand what my real mistake was.</p>
<p>OP…I am sure you heard about the failed terror attack on Timesquare. Do you understand how your actions have been perceived? Any threat of terror should be prosecuted. Right now you are only thinking about how your actions are affecting you. Very early on in this thread I stated that your parents money could be better served getting you help to understand why you feel the need to inflict terror upon others. I find this such a serious offence and I hope you will get the help you need or ask your parents to send you back to whatever country you feel at peace in.</p>
<p>I’m wondering if he understands, since he repeatedly starts threads asking the same question.</p>
<p>He obviously doesn’t understand because in his latest thread – the one that was closed yesterday-- he seemed to think that having high grades and scores would cause colleges to overlook the fact that he posted something on the Internet that caused him to be expelled and caused the FBI to investigate him as a possible terrorist.</p>
<p>Folks,</p>
<p>We’re taking about a person who was born in India and raised in Saudi Arabia. His values are different than all of ours. We’re talking to him assuming he has American values. He doesn’t because he wasn’t raised in here.</p>
<p>Honestly, trying to teach American values to a Indian raised in Saudi Arabia over the internet is a futile task. I suggest that we spend our time on people that will actually benefit from our advice.</p>