@AzureKsoru What @Lindagaf says is true. High School Counselors write a letter of recommendation for all their students, so you need to ask what exactly they will say. Also, our S just applied to colleges this year and I believe every college that he applied to required 2-3 letters of recommendation one of which had to be from the school counselor, so understanding what will be said by the counselor is very important. I know you are worried about your tenuous relationship with your parents, but in all seriousness, this sort of matter would best be handled and potentially could be made to go away entirely in the hands of a good attorney. On a side note, even in the worst case scenario, stellar performance at community college for 2 years and then transferring to the school of your dreams would not be horrible. I am sure that is not what you want to hear, but I am just saying in the worst case scenario it would not be the end of the world. Working with someone right now at a client who did CC and then transferred to UC Berkeley (very tough school)—happens all the time here in California
^ California is special when it comes to cc quality and financial aid.
@AzureKsoru : Commonapp and Coalition app colleges all require a recommendation from the school counselor. So would 40 Acres, Plan II, scholarship and honors programs. So yes it’s a big deal because it means your school is deciding you cannot apply to any prestigious school nor any college that offers excellent financial aid. They’re effectively curtailing your college choices widely.
Where do your parents hope you’ll go to college?
Could that be a point of entry with them?
I’m sure they want you punished but not denied college opportunities.
Is your school public or private? Charter? Parish/religious?
Consensual fondling on school property is nothing new for high school administrators and usually results in ‘in school service’ or 'detention’at worst; such a punishment, which usually indicates assault, is something you should fight.
Since your school is new, it should be easy to find yearbooks and get a hold of some former students who could then point you to what happened to whom with what consequences.
I would call the ACLU, perhaps requesting anonymity, as well as a LGBTQ group also requesting anonymity at first so that you know your rights at least.
Great post, @MYOS1634 . OP, please don’t ignore what we are saying. If you feel overwhelmed, is there an adult you can confide in who can guide you through this and not be judgemental? An aunt, neighbor, coach, pastor? I find what your school is doing to be totally outrageous.
If there is anyway you can get in touch with your girlfriend, she should be considering the same. And please don’t talk to anyone at the school without your parents present.
Sorry, but yeah, a bit overwhelmed. I’m visiting family right now so I’m nowhere near my school.
I’ll give the ACLU a call when I have a spare moment. I don’t know if I’ll do more than that, I have to talk to my mother about all this.
I’m in a public school in Texas. I’ll see if I can find the precedence for this type of misconduct - I did not assault her. We were both willing participants. I can’t contact her because her parents took up her electronics and I can’t fly to Vancouver so I don’t know.
Also on the Plan 2 honors website it says that the letters of recommendation are optional - does that include counselor’s too or just teacher’s? I was hoping to get in it.
One of the earlier posts said I could potentially write this away. I mean… is it possible to talk about this and then the religious camp I’m going to later this summer as a turning point and try to make it seem less terrible?
First, you didn’t do anything terrible. You may have broken rules, but you don’t deserve the punishment. As far as Plan 2, you can contact the admissions office and ask generally about the Letters of Rec, but don’t specify. Just say “I am looking for clarification about what LORs I would be recommended to send.”
You may not get into Plan 2, right? The rule of thumb here on CC is that some things are really only optional for students who would have a very difficult time getting something that for most kids is required. So if your family is desperately poor, and can’t afford to pay for SAT 2 tests, as an example, a college would consider the circumstances and overlook the fact that you are unable to submit optional SAT 2 tests. I would think that a student NOT submitting LORs might be given extra scrutiny (“why would a student NOT submit LORs? Are they hiding something?”) but I know nothing about Plan 2. You will probably need to apply to other colleges, and many colleges ask for LOR’s.
You can write an essay about all this, but it isn’t over yet, and you may not want to write about it. The primary goal of the essay is to give colleges insight to who you are. Are you a kid who got caught kissing another kid at school, or are you more than that? Many gay students write about their sexuality because it’s important to their identity, understandably, but colleges have seen a million essays like that. Many kids also write about traumatic experiences, again understandably, and colleges have also seen a million of those essays.
I don’t think you have told us what grade you are in, or what kids of colleges you are interested in. If you are a junior, this issue needs to be resolved as quickly as possible though, and ideally with you not going to this other school. I agree with MYOS that if unresolved, this could cause you all kinds of problems.
The point is that what you did really isn’t terrible. Most of us find your punishment over the top. Where I live there would be absolutely no additional consequence for the fact that it was same-sex contact.
Most colleges ask on the application whether you have any disciplinary record. An out of school placement would certainly count and you shouldn’t have to lie on your application or forego letters of recommendation because of one incident of consensual contact.
If you were my child I would not be advising you to write a “write it away” college essay. I would be recommending a face forward “This is what it’s like to be me, growing up where I live - punished harshly for harmless exploration simply because of who I love” essay. I’d want you to own it. Of course you’d have to acknowledge that you broke the bathroom rules. I can’t see colleges getting all hot and bothered about a relatively minor infraction like this.
I know right now you probably want to hide your head in the sand, but I agree with the others who have told you to fight this. The worst scenario would be that the school caught wind that you had been sent to the alternative school but no one explained it. That could make it look like you were being punished for seriously predatory behavior.
Adding, after cross posting with Lindagaf’s post, I wouldn’t write about this for your main essay. If you do disclose your disciplinary record and that would give you an opportunity to address this.
@Sue22 wrote:
This is what I mentioned in post 15 above (item 5). I think the priority right now should be making this go away, but I also think it would make a great essay. The OP didn’t do a whole lot wrong, IMO.