<p>Does anyone know if a 10th grade suspension will really hurt my chances of getting into Penn?</p>
<p>I'm in the top 5% of my class, actually lower, and I've always taken the hardest classes available for me to take. I took a lot of AP classes and did well on the tests last year, and this year I'm taking 7. I have a 4.0 unweighted GPA and over a 6 weighted GPA, 2200 SAT, 31 ACT and 700+ on SAT IIs. I have a lot of community service, and I am involved in several extracurriculars in my school, which I hold leadership roles in. I live near Philadelphia and I'm applying early decision to the University of Pennsylvania. I email my admissions officer with questions once and a while to try to show that I am definitely interested and excited about the school, and I visit the campus and classes frequently. I lived on campus over the summer for a summer program as well.</p>
<p>I thought I had a pretty good chance of getting in, but one thing that has been worrying me recently is my disciplinary action record. I don't technically have any disciplinary action documented on my high school record, but in 10th grade, I was dating a senior so I went to his prom. I was young and easily influenced by my surroundings and made the stupid mistake of drinking before the prom and getting caught for it later. The principal knew I was a good student who made a stupid mistake so he never called the police like he was supposed to, and I didn't get in any trouble with the law. It was school policy to suspend me for 10 days, but they allowed me to come back after about 3 days to take final exams, even though I was technically suspended. I really did learn a lot about giving in to peer pressure and about being more of a leader and independent person from this incident, and I know I can convey that in the essay that is required, but I'm really scared that this will automatically hurt my chances of getting into the school. It happened a long time ago, and since then, I never got in trouble of anything.</p>
<p>Because this isn't even on my record, I probably could just check off "no" on the common app when it asks, but I feel like it is kind of a turning point in my life and also, my guidance counselor who has to write a recommendation knows about the suspension because he had to get me the work that I missed. Another thing is, I think he might have forgotten about the incident because he hasn't brought it up for 2 years even though we've had many meetings about college applications. It might look weird if I write about it and then none of my teacher recommendations mention anything.</p>
<p>I'm reallly nervous that this one stupid mistake is going to mess up my whole application.</p>