<p>I have a question about suspension affecting my chances for college. I am currently a junior.</p>
<p>In the beginning of sophomore year, a classmate held me down to prank me. To get him off, I bit him. Long story short, even after explaining what had happened, I got suspended for one day. Before and after this incident, I have never had detentions (after-school or lunch) or any other kind of disciplinary problem. I have a 4.0 GPA (4.7 weighted), am one of the top students in my grade (class rankings haven't been released yet, this is just me comparing myself to others in my classes) and recently took the SAT (2130, but I'm taking it again and am trying to get a better score). My teachers at the time were just as shocked as I was, because I've never been unruly or tardy, etc. I volunteer teaching underprivileged children violin, giving tours at local historical sites and sending out donation requests for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Center. I'm in my school's string group, first chair in orchestra, part of the debate team (ranked on a national and state level), math team, Asian Heritage Club and a varsity athlete. I'm applying for something that asks me "Have you ever been suspended?" I intend to be honest about it but talk to my GC/Dean to get it expunged </p>
<p>Even so, I have no idea what lesson I was supposed to have learned from getting suspended. Yes, I shouldn't have bit him, but I already verbally insisted on him stopping and the others who saw thought it was funny. I'm not going to write something along the lines of "it was my only recourse", but everytime I think about how to put it, I always sound like the victim. The best I could do is explain what happened, and tack on something like "I learned that actions of consequences" or something of that sort... </p>
<p>Will this affect my college admissions in the future?</p>
<p>Something you could write about that may be interesting and thought provoking, was how you learned never to have fun at someone’s expense. You could mention that people see pranks and jokes as fun and games, but you learned first hand how painful it was. You could discuss that being the brunt of someone’s joke caused you to do something out of character. I would mention that this experience made you vow to never treat anyone the same way.</p>
<p>Also, you could try to get your GC and/or Principal to write something about it in the counselor recommendation portion, explaining what happened so that colleges see the “official” side of things and see that your admin sort of back you up, you know?</p>
<p>This is why liberals in school systems **** me off…Students should be able to retaliate under appropriate circumstances and schools just overreact. I’m sorry you got screwed over. Just when you’re writing your paper, how it happened, express what you have learned from it, and show that you’ve moved on. Don’t make excuses.</p>
<p>These are good ideas. One question though: How do I make “He held me down to prank me” not sound like an excuse? I’m in no way condoning biting someone, but in my point of view, saying just “I bit someone” makes me sound randomly aggressive but including the circumstances makes it sound like I’m shifting the blame.</p>
<p>Afterwards, he apologized for getting me suspended (after telling me I overreacted) and I apologized (somewhat halfheartedly, I admit). I learned to take it into stride and all; que sera sera. Life happens?</p>
<p>Physically holding someone down is not a prank. It may be funny to him, but it wasn’t funny to you. You couldn’t get him off of you so you did whatever you could to get him to move. That’s all. State what happened in a matter of fact way. Being held down creates different responses in people. I don’t know anyone that would enjoy being held down. For some reason, you feel guilty but you shouldn’t. You did what you needed to do to get this guy off of you. He thinks holding someone down is funny. He’s the one with issues; not you. I mean honestly, if it happened again, would you do the same thing? Probably, right? You wanted the guy off of you. What’s wrong with that.</p>
<p>The school’s official stance one the matter is that I was the aggressor. His holding me down was dismissed as a “youthful indiscretion” while I was cited for assault because apparently, human bites are deadlier than animal bites and he had to go to the hospital and get some immunization shots. The dean (whom I’ve only met while bawling my eyes out because of this) pretty much thinks I’m some sort of miscreant and filed a police report to protect the school from lawsuits.</p>
<p>Everyone’s been saying “just say you wouldn’t do it again and what you learned from it”. Honestly, if the same thing happened, I probably would, or kick him off or something… and the only thing I really learned from it was that school bureaucracy’s a pain.</p>
<p>The school has to cover it’s tush… It’s a matter of perception. How could you be the aggressor when he was the one who started it by holding you down? Bottom line, is there is nothing you can do about the past. All you can do is learn from the experience and move on. Your essay will be important with regards to this. Everything else looks great. You will go to college.</p>
<p>I never said say you won’t do it again. What I said was say that you would never taunt or tease someone in this manner because you experienced the pain and powerlessness of this type of action first hand. That is a very different stance then “I would never do it again.”</p>
<p>My comment was not something against your suggestion and I’m sorry if it came off that way. What I meant was, given similar circumstances of someone holding me down, I would probably resort to something physical to get that person off.</p>
<p>I wasn’t offended in the least. I was just clarifying what I said since it seemed you didn’t see it. When you said “everyone keeps saying” I just assumed you didn’t see what I wrote. If you read all of my comment #7, you’ll see that I thought you would do the same thing and I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I’m on your side. I don’t think you should write about how you would never do it again since that isn’t honest. Hang in there and good luck.</p>
<p>Thanks so much for your suggestions though, it’ll really help. I doubt it’ll be expunged considering I remember the dean was irritated at me when I kept him an hour after school to contest it so ill just have to live with it.</p>