During his junior year of high school, my son received an out of school suspension for bringing a vaping device with a THC cartridge to school. He went through a lengthy workback process to get back in good standing at his school, and has been doing well ever since. Although difficult, the process he went through to get back on track at school ended up being a positive for him in the long-run and we are proud of the way he has he has matured a lot over the past year. Our school district does not report disciplinary actions on school transcripts, but when filling out his Common App., we were honest and he answered “yes” to the question about any discipline history and he wrote a brief explanation. My son’s dream school is UCF and his stats fall in their range of admissions - 1350 SAT, 4.2 GPA. He has taken many AP courses and during his senior year, he has been doing early admissions at our local community college. He just received his first semester grades and got straight A’s in the four classes he took. He put in his application to UCF on 10/29/19 and we’ve been checking his status daily, LOL. Today, when we logged on, his admissions status now says that an admission decision has been deferred pending a review for his affirmative answer regarding the disciplinary action on his application, and that he would be contacted by e-mail if additional information is needed. My question is, what do we do now? Do we wait, or should we be protactive and provide additional information, even though it’s not been requested yet? My son’s school principal wrote a very strong letter of recommendation on his behalf that I would like to send them. I would also like to end them his first semester grades. Should we email admissions with this additional information now?
From the information in this link, you were definitely in the right to report since it was an out-of-school suspension.
https://osrr.sdes.ucf.edu/clearances/
This link gives some more information about the clearance process.
https://osrr.sdes.ucf.edu/admissions/
I’ve never dealt with UCF, but based on this information, seems like a 30-second phone call to the OSRR to clarify the process and casually mention the LOR would be harmless since you actually have information from the website saying it is under review. And they may give the go-ahead to send the LOR. I wouldn’t think they would be like, “ This person called us, so he is denied!”
I would advise my child to call rather than email.
Call the college and talk to the admissions people. Be polite and ask what the timeframe for the review is and if there is any info that you can provide to speed the process. I think a little proactive is better than just waiting it out.
I would send the LOR, his first semester grades, and a letter from your son to explain what he did and what he had learned from the experience. I think the letter from his principal should be very helpful.
You handled this perfectly. Go ahead and send the additional support materials. The college is taking extra time out of an abundance of caution, and that’s a responsible policy on their part too. While it is hard to be patient, I don’t think you’ll have anything to worry about. Once more of the facts are on the table, the incident likely won’t be a factor in the decision. Hang in there!
Call admissions & ask for advice.
He should have an admission officer (AO) for this school that is responsible for his school. Ask his high school counselor if they send the grades/LOR letters . My kids school did it automatically to all colleges they applied to. Send the LOR to his AO,or have his counsler do it. Again, at my kids school it was done automatically whether the school wanted it or not.
It should also come from him not you,in a nice short email if his counsler doesn’t do it. The principal LOR should explain and be enough.
Have you spoken with the GC since you learned this? To me, that would come first.
@lookingforward No, we haven’t spoken with the GC yet. The change of status just showed up that he was deferred on Saturday, so we will have to wait until Monday to get in touch with the GC.
Advice suggesting that you send additional materials might aggravate the situation if the principal’s description of the incident differs from the version reported by the student.
Better to call admissions & ask for advice.
OP posted this:
@oldfort: Yes, I understand that. But, if the letter of recommendation in any way differs from OP’s son’s account of the incident, then additional issues arise.
P.S. Also, if the letter of recommendation from the principal does not mention or address the incident then it could aggravate the matter.
OP - is the principal LOR related to the incident or is it a generic strong LOR? If it’s latter then he should get someone from his school (probably his GC) to write a letter to explain the situation and let AOs know he has learned from the incident.
The best course of action may be to wait. Why risk aggravating the situation ?
If there is an adverse decision, then there should be a method of appeal.
There are too many unknowns to CC readers. Much depends upon the student’s explanation of the incident as contained in the application. Anything which differs–even though well intentioned–may aggravate the matter.
Call admissions & ask about when to expect a decision & about any appeal process if necessary.
I think your son needs to call himself.
It’s possibly this is just procedural and they want to double check with the GC.
If the son calls and discusses the incident and there is additional or contradictory information given, then the process may be aggravated & a new review period initiated.
Best to wait.
Any communication at this time should be restricted to questions about procedures & rights, in my opinion.
P.S. We do not know all of the facts & circumstances. What if OP tried to sell any vaping material to another student ? Or encouraged others to vape with THC ? Or purchased or gave such items to other students ?
Too many unknown issues in this matter.
What is probably occuring is that the university is contacting the high school for an official report regarding the incident which resulted in out-of-school suspension.
Unfortunately, OP’s son may need to consult with an attorney if an adverse decision is rendered.
Again, we do not know all the facts including what OP wrote about the incident & what the high school will report to the university about the incident.
The LOR is both a strong LOR based on his academic performance throughout his high school career AND his principal also addresses his suspension and discussed the mature way he handled the incident and recovered from it.
Another issue is the “standard of review” to be used by the reviewing person or committee.
If you do not know the standard of review–their guidelines–then it is risky to send anything else even though seemingly favorable to your son’s case.
None of this was the case. He did not try to sell vaping materials, etc. Not to excuse this in any way, but unfortunately, in our school district and I’m sure many others around the country, vaping has reached epidemic levels and my son was among many students who got in trouble for this same thing.
Not only sell, but offer or give or purchase for another or encourage others to use.