<p>Digmedia, I'm afraid that the long-ago days when somebody could blow up a toilet with a cherry bomb -- maybe the most exciting and fun thing that might happen at school in a given year -- are long gone.</p>
<p>I still totally disagree with those of you who say that a disciplinary action that has been expunged from the school record need be reported. Yes, check with the GC to be sure what's in the permanent record, but if it's not there and it's not going to be reported by the GC, then effectively it didn't happen and even in a totally honest response it need not be reported.</p>
<p>My cousin's child forced the preschool to install a second lock on the play yard gate. They said they had NEVER had that problem before! ;)</p>
<p>I am afraid that these kids I posted about above may pay greater consequences down the road. There are obviously problems that are not being addressed. I don't know that I would be willing to send my child off to college with something major like substance abuse unresolved, particularly since the school does not have to notify parents of certain behaviors/illnesses.</p>
<p>mackinaw -- we have to agree to disagree. It DID happen. Expunging is marking it out of the record; expunging is not a time travel device to go back and not make it happen.</p>
<p>Iderochi, my point is that NOTHING may have happened EXCEPT an erroneous or misapplied disciplinary action. Say a bunch of students caught up on a potential cheating scandal but most of them were totally innocent and eventually had their records on this expunged. There is no reason for a student who was misidentified as a culprit to report the erroneous misidentification.</p>
<p>A'cherry' bomb that blew apart the bathroom stall? Not sure about searching all the cars and felony charges but that would have been material for expulsion in any school in any year.</p>
<p>I think the object of the Suspensions and Disciplinary Actions talks should be the counselors at the highschool I am willing to bet that 99% of those actions are not reported by the school, therefore not by the counselor. It should be required info on the transcript along with the grades, and reported so there is a level playing field for all. If you currently go to a school that reports nothing and the students are all told this during college counseling, if you are the only student to report any issues, what are you going to look like? Yeah, the adcoms should know that this is unrealistic but they should know that the current level of transgressions is waaaay underreported and they should be calling the schools on that one.</p>
<p>Agree mac. The sensationalism of terror is at a surreal level in the US--and the UK. </p>
<p>Still, irrespective of the media and govt reaction, that was some 'cherry' bomb. I wouldn't want that bomber in my college if I were adcom. I wouldn't want him in my kid's high school classroom, frankly. Shades of Columbine. He should have had the book thrown at him, IMHO. </p>
<p>On the other hand, S2 got thrown out of his House study for a week--for throwing a chunk of banana at a cricket batter in the House courtyard. Perfectly appropriate discipline for mischief. I don't think it will appear on his transcript.</p>
<p>Cheers: that's what cherry bombs do to toilets--they pack quite a punch, but also the fuses don't extinguish when underwater, so the technique, known to many many boys in those pre-terror days, was to light it, drop it in, and flush, so the explosion took place in a confined space. I think the punishment probably always was expulsion, or at least suspension and a bill for the parents--a risk that was weighed against the puerile glory of the act. Cherry bombs and M-80s, which blew off many young fingers, are now virtually unobtainable on the firecracker black market, fortunately. The whole thing has started me thinking about how different the world was then.</p>
<p>Clearing out old magazines, I came across the Ethicist column in the NYT Sunday magazine of Jan. 23, 2005 "Cheater's Redemption." A student was caught, along with others, cheating on a test as a sophomore. The school expunged the records of the cheaters. The student went on to apply to colleges and confessed to the offense. Update on the story, the student was admitted ED to the college of her choice.
Contrast this to the story in The Gatekeepers, of the young woman who confessed to Wesleyan adcoms that she'd tried marijuana, was caught, and disciplined. Though her essay dealt with the lesson she'd learned, Wesleyan (of all places!) rejected her.</p>
<p>Marite--"Wesleyan. Of all places" LOL. Seriously, though, the adcoms in the book maintained it was because of her grades and SATs, and frankly, given the fact that they were lower than the average admits, while she was attending the fanciest prep school in LA, with all those advantages, I would've been outraged if they HAD accepted her, because it would have been just for this incident, despite just average everything else. I guess I don't think that fessing up should get you into a school you wouldn't've gotten into otherwise.</p>
<p>Maybe I don't remember correctly but I think they <em>did</em> offer her a spot at the end, for mid year admission or for the following year... something funky... but she picked Cornell.</p>
<p>I had a different view of the kid because she had <em>turned herself in,</em> she was not a suspect. That takes a great deal of character. Sad that a kid who'd not turned himself in, but say been busted-- & then ultimately had the event expunged so never said a word to the college-- this kid would be let in ahead of the person who had owned up, tried to correct her mistake, take the high road... Not quite right.</p>
<p>SBmom: I think it was Cornell that offered the midyear start.</p>
<p>Marite: I think the guy the book was following argued her case strongly, but that others felt that her academics didn't warrant it. (that's how I remember it, but who knows, my memory ain't so great anymore...) To be honest, I myself felt that way, that she was being given more of a chance than some one from Podunk High, who hadn't had the kind of academic support she had had. In fact, I felt that a lot as I read this, that prep schools kids got a lot of special attention I certainly didn't see at my kids' HS!</p>
<p>I agree that the student in question was a borderline candidate at any of those schools. The pot incident seemed to be highlighted as "tip" for her rather than another item on her app. I suspect that few kids from that school ever have a "yes" to that badboy question on the app, as is the case for many schools. And you can see the disciplinary lists each year will have a number of kids on disciplinary probation and suspended. It just does not add up. It would have been more informative to see how adcoms view a supplementary sheet explaining these things on students who are definitely well within the admit category, BUT they have the rap sheet. According to the CC commentators, this should not adversely affect admissions. Most people would not agree. Also, you wonder about the explanations, as most kids really do not know why the heck they have done something stupid, have probably done it before, and may just have been unlucky in getting caught. How honestly can you make mea culpe on these things.</p>
<p>Dunno. Ratbags that we were, we fired off hundreds of M80s and cherry bombs in our neighborhood. Never saw that kind of damage. Didn't you say it blew apart the stall? We would have been drawn and quartered for that--even back in the day.</p>