Hello everyone! Currently I am a sophomore, and I will soon finish my 1st semester (in January). I finished my freshman year with a solid GPA of 3.1. Going into sophomore year, I have had 4 As, 2 Bs, and 1 C+ (Geometry) for the 1st marking period. I continued having really good grades in all subjects, except Geometry. For the semester exams, I have not studied and probably will fail all of them. However due to the grades in class I will manage with mostly all Bs and B-s and one C or two. This will considerably drop my GPA between 3.1 and 2.7. Still during my sophomore year, I was suspended for one day. The reason behind is that I was being told racist jokes. A guy was making fun out of me and being racist. I was fed up and told him to stop. However, he would not and when I touched him lightly to tell him to stop he suddenly grabbed me and pushed me to the floor. A teacher saw us and we both got suspended for a day. However I believe that my suspension was unjust and it will affect my college choices greatly, on top of me not having the best grades.
I still have the second semester of sophomore year to go, and I still have room for improvement obviosuly. Now that the long talk is over, I would like to ask if my suspension and poor performance will affect my college admission into good schools. For freshman year and this semester I have not put my best performance and effort, adding to the lack of will. What would I need to improve my admission chances, and how much will the events described to you affect the admissions? (Will take PSAT next year)
Forgot to add that I am an international student. However I will be applying to US universities, and hopefully a good one will accept me despite of what happened!
Really hard to give you any advice when you self-inflict academic damage upon yourself. Why would you even think of not studying.
I don’t think the suspension is that big of a deal, but who knows in the hypersensitive culture we live in. You do need to learn to walk away from potential violent confrontation.
Thanks for the help, I will need to give my 100 percent now! About the “when I touched him lightly” I was not thinking of harming him, but I possibly provoked him. I learned my lesson!
A one day suspension in sophomore year isn’t going to be held against you if there’s no repeat. You will need to explain it in the application - and the answer is simply, "I made a dumb mistake by getting into a fight with someone. It never happened again.’ All the rest - racist joke, touched lightly, etc…is irrelevant and at worst sounds like an excuse.
The much more important problem is your GPA. Why didn’t you study? It’s that, not your suspension, that will keep you out of good US schools.
I have a problem with a lack of motivation, but when I am interested in certain aspects of a course, I usually get a straight A on the semester…