High school students make mistakes. Some of these are grander in scope than others; some forget to return a library book or stay out past curfew, others screw up in more dramatic fashion. These things happen, and then consequences ensue. This then leads to an important question: what does this mean for your college aspirations?
In this article, we’re going to examine this topic. Colleges do care about your disciplinary history, your so-called “permanent record.” Of course, not all offenses are weighted equally, and not all colleges ask. In this article we’ll cover which colleges care, why they care, how you need to inform them, and how all of this affects your chances of college admission.
Do Colleges Care About Your Disciplinary History?
Yes…to an extent.
Admissions officers don’t care about every detention or unexcused absence, these are not worth their time. They do, however, care about more serious offenses, and what they say about your character. Colleges are evaluating you as both a scholar and a person, and serious disciplinary incidents can weigh significantly on the latter evaluation.
Your high school disciplinary history is known to colleges in two ways; first in a self reporting section on the Common App, and second through your counselor. Counselors submit a letter of recommendation, your transcript and a school report, and in these documents can include notes on any troubles you have had. What exactly they report is up to them, but you should check with your counselor specifically to see what information they are sharing with colleges.
Some colleges, but not all, ask you to self-report any disciplinary incidents you had. A full list of schools which require this can be found here. These are a college-specific question, and can be found as you add individual schools to your Common App. In general these consist of a checkbox if you have something to report, followed by a space to write about the incident. We will go over how to do so in more depth later.
In general, you don’t have to report everything to colleges. They rarely care about incidents with a small magnitude. Specifically, you don’t need to worry about any of the following:
- Detentions
- Tardies
- Unexcused absences
- Warnings (usually)
The following levels of punishment will need to be discussed however:
- Suspensions
- Expulsions
- Anything involving law enforcement
- Any Academic Honesty violations (cheating, plagiarism, etc.)
There is nuance to all of this of course. Make sure you check with your counselor to see what will be reported, and which incidents you need to ameliorate.
Middle School Incidents
Colleges only care about disciplinary incidents which occurred during your high school years, both inside and outside of school. Any incidents which occurred during middle school do not need to be reported, and will not impact your admissions. You get a clean slate when beginning high school. Incidents in middle school may impact how your high school teachers and counselors see you, but have no impact on your admissions chances.
How to Tell Colleges About Disciplinary Incidents
As we mentioned above, some colleges give you a space to describe any incidents in your disciplinary history. If you have disciplinary incidents that your school will be notifying colleges about, then you need to fill out these sections. Not filling them out, or lying, is much worse. You will have your admission rescinded if a college finds out you missed important information here.
The most famous incident of this occurred at Harvard in the 90s, when a student had her application rescinded when the school discovered she had murdered her mother. There were mitigating circumstances, but admissions officers felt that the fact she lied on her application was enough to rescind the acceptance, rather than the act itself.
Of course, most incidents fall far short of this, but the warning is clear. It is better to take responsibility for your actions and tell your own side of the story, than to lie and risk getting found out.
You will have several hundred words to discuss any incidents. Here is how you should lay out your response:
Step One: Establish What Happened, and Express Remorse
The first step is to clearly explain the incident in question, and express remorse for your part in it. If there are mitigating circumstances, you can explain those here. Some schools have zero-tolerance policies which punish the victims and perpetrators fo violence the same; if you have run afoul of these, you should definitely detail such here.
You do not want to try and excuse your behavior, but to let admissions officers know exactly what happened. This is not the bulk of the writing, and should take up a brief paragraph.
Step Two: Establish Context
The goal here is not to make excuses for what you did, but to explain your mindset and circumstances. You want to show that this was a momentary lapse in judgment, and not a broader reflection of your character. You want to discuss what led you to make the choices you did, and what particular influences impacted you.
This can cover a lot of ground, from your mental state at the time, to stressors you were under, to the influence of others on your behavior. In the end, you are the only person responsible for what you have done, but mitigating factors can and will be included. We recommend honesty here as well, as you can expect counselors to give their own version of this report.
How long this needs to be depends on the incident in question, and the number of factors which contributed to your decision. You should make sure to cover everything, but do not go off on tangents or include unnecessary details. This isn’t another essay like the personal statement, and purple prose should be omitted.
Step Three: Demonstrate Growth and Show Contrition
You need to finish off this statement by showing that you have learned and grown from this experience. You want to show colleges that you are not the same person who made these mistakes, and you will not repeat this behavior on their campus. Teenagers make mistakes, that’s part of growing up. The other half of that is that you need to learn from what you’ve done, and not do it again.
This is easiest to demonstrate if the initial issue was early in your academic career, and you have kept your nose clean since. You are not the same person at 14 as you are at 18. This is similar to how colleges are more lenient with your grades if they show dips in freshman year.
The lessons you learn from this incident are your own, but you should generally try to demonstrate the following:
- How you have grown as a person since and because of the incident.
- Evidence for this growth, both in not repeating your mistakes, and in other actions you have taken.
- Contrition for your actions; accepting responsibility for what happened.
The overall length of this response varies between schools. We recommend writing the longest response first, and then cutting down to fit the shorter required word counts. Do not feel as if you need to use all of the space given; as with the additional information section, your goal is to say everything that needs to be said to give a coherent explanation.
Reporting Expulsion and Changing Schools to Colleges
If you attended multiple high schools, you are provided a space to note the reason for the change. This is a shorter section, without room to go into the full details of an incident. You should note down if you were expelled, and then give further details in the additional personal information section.
These should parallel the written response above; explaining what happened, giving context, and explaining how you have grown since. You will still need to fill out the disciplinary history section for colleges, but will not need to rewrite the entire statement; simply fill in other details as necessary, or point them back to the additional information section.
Whether or not an expulsion or other disciplinary activity requires you to change schools depends on the school in question, and its policies. In any case, honesty is still your best policy. Do not give an incorrect or misleading reason for why you changed schools.
Final Thoughts
Teenagers make mistakes; this is part of the occasionally painful process of growing up. Some of these mistakes are harmless, others incur consequences; these too are part of the learning process. While one mistake during your time in high school doesn’t spell the end of your collegiate ambitions, you do need to show that you’ve learned from your mistakes, and that you won’t make the same ones in college.
We hope that this article has shown you the process for discussing any disciplinary issues you encountered in high school with colleges, and how they may impact your application. Of course, applying to college can be quite stressful, even without this as an additional concern. If you want advice on your own specific situation, or with any portion of your college applications, schedule a free consultation today. We have a long history of helping students with their applications, and are always happy to hear from you.
