I brought a knife to school and tried to kill someone. Will this affect my chances???

Applying to College
1

<p>OK I'm kidding abou the killing someone... It was a small swiss-army knife that I got from the Dollar Store. I was actually cutting out "Pearls Before Swine" comics when I got caught with it. However... I got suspended for five days because of the whole incident.</p>

<p>I'm applying to UC's and Stanford... </p>

<p>I know the common app asks specifically if I've gotten suspended or anything like it before... What should I do?? My friend who got admitted last year told me he lied and said he'd never gotten suspended before.</p>

2

<p>Pearls Before Swine is awesome!</p>

<p>i really can't tell you what to tell the colleges, I guess the best thing to do would be to just be honest and give a good explanation. it's obvious that you meant no harm to anybody.</p>

3

<p>File a lawsuit for wrongful suspension.</p>

<p>Winning a litigation case is an extraordinary achievement at the age of 17-18, after all, isn't it? ;)</p>

<p>(I am joking, but I am wondering ...)</p>

4

<p>That's such bs...</p>

5

<p>Write an essay about injustice.</p>

6

<p>Ask your GC if the suspension is on your permanent record. Also ask if the school has a "Zero Tolerance Policy."</p>

<p>If so, admit it and explain that you had a Swiss Army Knife and you were using it for a project to cut out drawings, during a different class. This resulted in a mandatory 5-day suspension which you served. You regret the incident very much and are extremely careful now not to cross any school rules.
If the school has a "Zero Tolerance Policy" then simply add that information, but without comment or opinion.</p>

<p>Many colleges know that h.s. Zero Tolerance Policies result in overly harsh punishments for otherwise law-abiding kids. The administrators essentially have no leeway to exercise judgment and must give penalties every time, regardless of prior record, etc.</p>

<p>I think if your teacher Letters of Recommendation indicate a sincere, honest person, this will not hurt your chances. If you have a teacher you especially trust, tell him this is worrying you and you're hop[eful the LOR can help put it to rest.</p>

<p>I don't think it will hurt your chances if everything else is fine on your app. If you are noted in an LOR to be cynical, a wise-guy, or risk-taking, maybe they'd be concerned.
Otherwise, don't worry.</p>

<p>But if it's on your permanent record and you lie, that could kill your chances completely because they'd see the contradiction, right? </p>

<p>Ask for advice from a savvy teacher at your school. This is my best parental advice.
Good luck to ya.</p>

7

<p>Sue them. The Supreme Court ruled that they cannot regulate guns near schools, or in schools, thus any such law is unconstitutional. Knives should be the same story :)</p>

<p>JK by the way on the law suit part.</p>

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<p>Wow. This isn't a joke thread?</p>

9

<p>Honestly, I think this could harm you quite a lot. I think you need to make sure that your application minimizes it as much as possible--i.e., by making it crystal clear that this knife was not really a weapon.</p>

10

<p>Thank you, Hunt. I was hoping also to get people to take this thread seriously.
This kind of stuff happens all the time now in schools due to harsher h.s. policies than some of the college kids may remember. Some of them are "Zero Tolerance" which means that any item, inclduing a butter knife to spread a kid's peanut butter onto a sandwich, can cause an infraction listed as "weapons violation."
Zealous (I think overzealous) PTA's get these rules passed to protect their schools from real violence. When it's Zero Tolerance, it's also zero thinking on the part of administration.
Our kid was in 5th grade in a Canadian elementary school when this stuff started coming down. He poked a bratty kid with a pencil and under "zero tolerance" was going to be suspended for a week plus carry a permanent record of "assault with a weapon" if we hadn't raised the roof off the school. Actually we were diplomatic; he served a suspension but we got it expunged from his record after a year of "no further infractions." All we cared about was the record since we knew the two kids involved. He actually halted a real bully this way, but since it was a pencil poke on the thigh, he was in that category.</p>

<p>That's why I took the trouble to post when usually I don't even read the college age posters. It's your forum, after all, and I usually hang out with Parents. But I felt the OP needs to compose a proper short-essay response if it's on his perm h.s. record. If he does so, I think the college will immediately see it's one of these loophole things that happens, given these bizarre new policies in some h.s.'s.</p>

<p>Making it Zero Tolerance gives the administration NO ability to do a case-by-case response based on the actual facts. It assumes no wisdom on the part of the administrators. These policies are coming in more in cushy suburban public schools, afraid of violence elsewhere, than where the actual violence and hidden weapons are actually in place and the administrators know how to make fine distinctions.</p>

<p>YES, I'd describe the size and purpose of the Swiss Army Knife bought at a dollar store, used to cut out cartoons in a classroom setting..than leave it for chance. The fact that he was suspended 5 days indicates his school is right over the top and should be evident to the college adcoms. </p>

<p>If it's on your record, address it, perhaps where they ask you to explain the suspension.</p>

<p>If it's the UC's, perhaps there's stuff written on this on the net as to how they respond to h.s. infractions...probably they don't publish this, but maybe there are news articles, student-written articles, to give you an indication.</p>

<p>Consider applying to a safety school, just in case. If you get wiped out by the UC's and Stanford is always a reach, you might want to add in an app before the deadlines expire.</p>

<p>I THINK you'll be okay. I tend to worry for kids, so don't take my tone to get you upset...just get moving and look into it. Sorry to be longwinded; it hit all my triggers. Oops, did I say trigger? Oh no, banishment is next!!</p>

11

<p>MrOh,</p>

<p>If you haven't done so already, ask to see your school records which is your right under FERPA if you are 18 or older, or your parents can act on your behalf if you are under 18. This way you can see what is actually in the record about the incident. If the record is wrong, you can get it corrected. You need not say more than what is documented in the record.</p>

<p>Family</a> Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)</p>

12

<p>This will not hurt your chances AT ALL. If your school is going to report it (i.e. it is on your record) you will need to disclose the suspension and write a brief explanation. Be very factual- simply state what occurred, why you were penalized and what you learned from the incident. This is a non-event and will have no impact. (I know what I am talking about, being the forum expert on disclosure of suspensions/expulsions)</p>

13

<p>It's pretty dumb that applications would require this information. If you were convicted of a crime, then the college could reasonably demand to know about it out of concern for the safety of other students. </p>

<p>Whether or not you broke a school rule is irrelevant, in light of the much more important information available about your intelligence and drive to succeed in undergraduate studies.</p>

<p>Basically: </p>

<p>If the action was actually anything serious, the case would have been tried in court, resulting in either a conviction (relevant) or acquittal (not relevant).</p>

<p>If the action in question did not result in prosecution and conviction, then all that happened was someone broke an arbitrary school rule.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Sue them. The Supreme Court ruled that they cannot regulate guns near schools, or in schools, thus any such law is unconstitutional. Knives should be the same story

[/quote]

Wrong. The decision in US v. Lopez was that the FEDERAL government could not regulate the gun laws of individual states (in this case, the law prohibited the posession of firearms near schools). It is still within the jurisdiction of the state and local governments to pass any laws as such.</p>

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<p>Thanks for all the great responses...</p>

<p>I was planning to briefly talk about the circumstances of my suspension in my personal statement, and then further elaborate in the "addition info" part of the apps.</p>

<p>My transcript holds no information about the suspension, and my counselor has told me that he put absolutely no information about my suspension on his packet to Stanford.</p>

<p>And no, this is not a joke thread. This thread is completely serious.</p>

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<p>I would ONLY discuss the suspension in response to the question about suspensions/expulsions and nowhere else.</p>

17

<p>Out of curiosity, when did this happen? Colleges are only concerned with your HS record, right?</p>

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<p>The middle of my junior year... KILLED my gpa. Suspensions are unexcused absences in this rotting cesspool known as the Bay Area.</p>

19

<p>Yup double checked today, only thing on my transcript that would hint at my suspension would be the several absences in my junior year</p>

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<p>Hello Admissions Committee!</p>

<p>I am very grateful that you have taken the time to look over my application and I hope you see a student worthy of admission to your university. I would like to take this opportunity to explain and elaborate on a few things I believe should be elaborated on.</p>

<p>-I'm not sure if you are aware of this at all, but I was suspended for five days in the first semester of my junior year for possession of a knife. In actuality, the knife was part of a Swiss army knife from the local dollar store. Shortly before my suspension, my group made a very large exhibit about Charlie Parker and it was on display in the school library. I carried several supplies such as super glue, X-acto blades, and the aforementioned Swiss army knife just in case our project was in need of emergency repairs. (Someone had vandalized it before in the library.) I was caught with the knife in my history class, where I was cutting out comic strips with the scissor attachment of the Swiss army knife. When I was searched more thoroughly in the dean’s office, they found the X-acto blades in my backpack. To this day I disagree with the very harsh punishment (my school follows a zero-tolerance policy on weapons), but I now understand that my school had an obligation to protect its students from potential harm and I gained more respect for school rules. This suspension took me out for an entire school week and was a large reason for my GPA drop for that semester because many of my teachers counted my absences as unexcused and this I got reduced marks on my make-up work and some teachers just gave me zeroes for the assignments.</p>

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<p>Any tips on editing this? This is not my personal statement.. just the little "additional info" part</p>