<p>if i was suspended for fighting in 11th grade, and i wanted to get into stanford, how would this affect their decisions. btw, im the valedictorian of my school and come from a low income family.</p>
<p>Stanford isn’t in the ivy league >_></p>
<p>to answer your question, maybe, is it on your transcript? why were you fighting in the first place if you’re the valedictorian?</p>
<p>Prism, that is an exceptionally stupid question. Getting good grades does not mean that you don’t fight, especially in cases where it is defensive. </p>
<p>To the OP, I would assume alot of it depends on the explanation you provide. If it is legitimate, it might be overlooked. Otherwise, given how many qualified applicants Stanford and other top schools have, it will likely rule you out.</p>
<p>one guy at my school sent an e-mail to some of his friends where he said something along the lines of “i’m gonna kill my teacher because …” it was sarcastic and in bad taste, however this kid, a model student, received two weeks suspension because some parent saw the e-mail and got angry</p>
<p>anyway he’s now at princeton. it’s my school’s policy to not release our disciplinary records, so it had no affect on their decision. find out what your schools policy is.</p>
<p>well at the end of the application, isnt there a spot where your supposed to check if you were suspended or arrested?</p>
<p>it wasn’t a stupid question. since he’s the valedictorian, that means he should be smart enough (both street wise and book wise) to be able to avoid a situation where a fight is likely to occur and would know that fighting would lead to a suspension, which could effect where he gets in to college. </p>
<p>However that said I was not meaning to say smart kids never fight, I was more simply asking why he was fighting for some background on the issue, and added the bit about valedictorian as a valedictorian would have less of a reason to partake in a fight than most kids since they have more to lose by doing so, the question didn’t come out quite the way i intended, admittedly</p>
<p>and if it was completely unavoidable and defensive, then thats a bit different</p>
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<p>Not true … </p>
<p>You are equating “valedictorian” to “obedient,” and there are too many obedient valedictorians out there who have always enjoyed the favour of authority …</p>
<p>When I was younger, I used to be much more hot-blooded too. I won’t go so far as to say it’s a hormonal thing, but I’ve had some amazing lapses in judgment, especially in dealing with someone who was antagonising me for six months. We fought in school (this was my birth country). Everyone egged us on. It was fortunate that we broke off before the adults arrived. Even today I didn’t know how I lost control.</p>
<p>I’ll also refrain from saying that getting into a good brawl sometime in your youth [before 18] is a prerequisite part of growing up as a male, but I’m sure it’s pretty common, smart student or not.</p>
<p>There was a thread like this earlier in the year, a guy who defensively hit another kid and broke his nose. If you want all the arguments (human nature v. budding sociopath) go to that thread. The bottom line for this OP is that Stanford is ridiculously hard to get into and having a suspension will not be an asset. You have to explain all suspensions and, obviously, it’s better not to have one. That said, I know a lot of kids who got into good schools, including Brown (with a cheating suspension,) and Trinity who had suspensions. But you had better write a good explanation, with the focus on how much you learned about yourself…</p>
<p>I know people who have gotten into top 50 schools with multiple suspensions/detentions on their records.</p>
<p>Depending on how serious the school decides the incident is.
Different things are considered more serious.</p>
<p>I know of people who were caught drunk at high school dances and of someone who got in trouble for making out with a guy in a classroom and were suspended as a result, all of these people didn’t have these suspensions on their transcript.</p>
<p>I know of a guy who cursed off a teacher while drunk at a high school dance, I don’t think that was taken off his transcript and he got waitlisted/rejected from colleges that would have likely taken him otherwise.</p>
<p>It probably will hurt you. It would be different if the fighting happened years ago, but 11th grade fighting could indicate an anger problem and immaturity that top colleges wouldn’t choose to deal with particularly when they have so many outstanding, unblemished applicants to select from.</p>
<p>Comment to others: Being book smart doesn’t mean that a person is calm or has high social skills.</p>