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Prep school disciplinary policy re alerting colleges
psparent
46 replies4 threadsRegistered User Junior Member
This is really a vent / cautionary tale for parents of not-perfect kids concerned about college admissions. In case you are not sure, if you have a kid, that kid is not perfect.
Our son is a senior at a top boarding school. He absolutely loved the school and was a leader on campus. Sending him to boarding school was a huge sacrifice (financial and otherwise) but he really wanted it. He was a bi-varsity athlete and a progressed from prefect as a junior to RA his senior year. Last December we got a call from him - crying so hard he couldn't breathe - that he was in trouble. He had smoked pot off campus over the weekend, and a student who was caught for other infractions said he had provided pot to my son. The deans showed up in his dorm room, demanded a drug test, and searched his room (which was clean). However, since he knew that he would be drug tested he confessed.
I can tell you that I never ever thought my son would do what he did and it was inexcusable. He was suspended and sent home. The humiliation was incredible. And deserved. For the rest of the year he is drug tested regularly and going to a counselor.
The consequences have been pretty far reaching though. For something that happened 100 % off campus, for which the school's only evidence was a voluntarily given drug test, the school sends a letter to all colleges where a student has applied to say that the student was subject to disciplinary action. On the common ap they then need to write an explanation of what happened, taking full responsibility. He was also stripped of his RA status. Being an RA was a huge time commitment and a major extra curricular to be highlighted on his college applications - until it wasn't.
Anyway, he had a pretty disappointing college acceptance season despite good grades, a near perfect ACT score, and very challenging curriculum, including Chinese.
I can't be sure that the suspension and the loss of RA status led to being rejected from some colleges, but if it did, it was due to an action that would never lead to discipline at a non-boarding school. One of our goals as parents sending our kids to boarding school IS a good college placement. I was glad that the consequences of his infraction were major but I have serious concerns about the impact they had on his future.
On a related note, one of the most common reasons for suspension is plagiarism. This does have a HUGE impact on college admissions. The issue at his school is that more than once a student has been found to have plagiarized when there are a few scattered phrases in a paper that match those (found using software) from another source - when it could easily have been inadvertent. Colleges don't care a ton about pot smoking on the weekend, but plagiarism can be devastating.
And, final note, star athletes found doing much worse have somehow had their discipline overturned.
4 years ago I was a smug mom 100 % certain that my kid would never ever do anything wrong and supporting the toughest possible discipline to keep out bad kids or kids who didn't adequately appreciate the opportunities of boarding school. Now having lived through this my attitude is quite different.
227 replies Our son is a senior at a top boarding school. He absolutely loved the school and was a leader on campus. Sending him to boarding school was a huge sacrifice (financial and otherwise) but he really wanted it. He was a bi-varsity athlete and a progressed from prefect as a junior to RA his senior year. Last December we got a call from him - crying so hard he couldn't breathe - that he was in trouble. He had smoked pot off campus over the weekend, and a student who was caught for other infractions said he had provided pot to my son. The deans showed up in his dorm room, demanded a drug test, and searched his room (which was clean). However, since he knew that he would be drug tested he confessed.
I can tell you that I never ever thought my son would do what he did and it was inexcusable. He was suspended and sent home. The humiliation was incredible. And deserved. For the rest of the year he is drug tested regularly and going to a counselor.
The consequences have been pretty far reaching though. For something that happened 100 % off campus, for which the school's only evidence was a voluntarily given drug test, the school sends a letter to all colleges where a student has applied to say that the student was subject to disciplinary action. On the common ap they then need to write an explanation of what happened, taking full responsibility. He was also stripped of his RA status. Being an RA was a huge time commitment and a major extra curricular to be highlighted on his college applications - until it wasn't.
Anyway, he had a pretty disappointing college acceptance season despite good grades, a near perfect ACT score, and very challenging curriculum, including Chinese.
I can't be sure that the suspension and the loss of RA status led to being rejected from some colleges, but if it did, it was due to an action that would never lead to discipline at a non-boarding school. One of our goals as parents sending our kids to boarding school IS a good college placement. I was glad that the consequences of his infraction were major but I have serious concerns about the impact they had on his future.
On a related note, one of the most common reasons for suspension is plagiarism. This does have a HUGE impact on college admissions. The issue at his school is that more than once a student has been found to have plagiarized when there are a few scattered phrases in a paper that match those (found using software) from another source - when it could easily have been inadvertent. Colleges don't care a ton about pot smoking on the weekend, but plagiarism can be devastating.
And, final note, star athletes found doing much worse have somehow had their discipline overturned.
4 years ago I was a smug mom 100 % certain that my kid would never ever do anything wrong and supporting the toughest possible discipline to keep out bad kids or kids who didn't adequately appreciate the opportunities of boarding school. Now having lived through this my attitude is quite different.
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Replies to: Prep school disciplinary policy re alerting colleges
I'm so sorry about what happened to your son. I don't understand why school officials don't consider more carefully whether the consequences of their punishment actually fit the gravity of the crime.
He said it could really distort kids' development. That by senior year, kids at BS become extraordinarily good at managing two very distinct selves, one for adult consumption and one for peers. He said it made them absolute masters at keeping secrets and hiding things. (But that it didn't keep them for partying hard). He claimed it made them less likely to go to adults for help, too because it turned adults into the police. The stricter the policies, the more underground the kids' go with their behavior.
He chose to keep his kids at home because he wanted them to know that they were loved even if they made mistakes and faulty decisions. He didn't think minor offenses deserved punishments that might have longer term consequences that didn't fit the crime.
I had NEVER thought about things from that perspective. Would love @sadieshadow and anyone else with insight into adolescent development.
He did say that if he sent his kids to BS, he would avoid his alma mater and any school with easy access to empty houses nearby (meaning access to country homes or homes left empty due to traveling parents.)
About empty houses...avoiding BS does not help with this. There are plenty of houses that are parent-less for a weekend or weeks at a time in the burbs. And plenty of public school kids to party in the houses. Partying is not reserved for BS kids.
Since you cannot go back in time or change anything, if you can, please try not to focus on the what-ifs or perceived unfairness of disparate treatment and, instead, embrace some of the positives related to this experience.
First, be glad your school is not a one-strike school. If it had that policy in place, your son would have been moving out the next day, never to return.
Second, hopefully, your son has learned important lessons about: personal responsibility, the higher standards expected of good leaders in the community, and the potential impact of his choices with regard to drug use.
Third, although current acceptances might be suboptimal, he will be going to college, and will be well prepared to excel there. Transfer is always a potential.
i think the catch is the drug test..... if the school has the right to ask for a random drug sample at any time, then it wouldn't matter where he smoked the pot. As an RA he would know this. I have heard stories of entire dorms having random drug screenings ( and yes, mostly boys dorms) bc there were rumors of drugs-
When we looked at schools one of the conversations we kept having was about the age of the repeaters. While it makes the earlier years (maturity) & sports ( size/experience) easier, I can not imagine being a late18-20 year old senior in a boarding school with dorm check in, without a car, limited dating, social stucture.... I can only imagine the mess they can get themselves into! What are the BS doing to prevent the boredom of these otherwise young adults? It's a real problem.
I personally "somehow" find myself driving my BS teen by her cinder block LPS the size of a Vegas Convention Center every time she's home- like to remind her where she WILL go if she forgets her BS rules!
Thanks for bringing an important subject to the forefront. It's important for every child and parent to read and understand the school's policy handbook. I think the process of notifying colleges of disciplinary action and of disciplining for violations for off-campus activity is fairly universal. As mentioned, it can be even more harsh for one strike schools and a reason I am not a fan of one strike policies. Teens do make mistakes and seem to have it wired into them to test boundaries and experiment.
It's really easy to look at your kid when 13/14 and being the boarding school process and think, well, I'll never have to worry about THAT stuff with Junior. And Junior might think that him/herself. 15/16/17/18, much different. I'll be honest that with one of my kids we really sweated it out until kiddo crossed the graduation stage and was handed a diploma. Great kid (says mom) but a bit of an independent streak. Gave me extra gray hair. Like in all high schools, there will be drugs, drinking, sex, and silly stuff that just breaks rules. Some kids will cheat, plagiarize. You can look at some of the surveys and you'll see that it is a sizable percentage that will engage in some kind of rule breaking behavior before they graduate. They all think they are smarter than they are and won't get caught - until they do. Or someone else gets caught and they all go quiet for a little while out of fear and a reminder, but that only lasts so long. I do have sympathy for the school administration in trying to enforce rules. Without some harsh consequences, I'm sure all hell would break loose. It's a tough call to make. One advantage to BS in my own days was that, unlike parents who could be fickle or emotional about punishments and thus inconsistent, at BS you knew the penalties as they were all laid out.
I've always said that BS starts off giving a kid more freedom than he/she would have at home at 14 but by the time they graduate it is usually much more restrictive than life at home and at public school. As far as public schools and partying, in my area, every year or two there is a big party busted by town police and kids get charged for underaged drinking. At least at BS, no one brings the cops in for your underage drinker or pot smoker.
It might be worth noting that you can always suggest your child call you before agreeing to anything or saying anything when confronted. I do know families who have "voluntarily" pulled their kid out before disciplinary action progressed. Not saying that is the right way to handle it, or the way your child will learn the most, but it is done.
As far as notifying colleges, I think it is done regardless of the offense whether it is marijuana, drinking, or cheating or plagiarism. How much colleges consider it a knock will depend on what it was and when the infraction took place. Make a mistake in 9th or 10th grade and one can successfully spin it as a learning experience. In 12th grade, it is every parent's nightmare and much harder to justify in that way. I will also add that plenty of disciplined kids go on to very good colleges. It might not be the tippy top schools one had their heart set on, but they are still going to have wonderful colleges that will accept them and provide a great education. I know several examples of such from my kids' friends and classmates. Doing well at fine institutions. In the big scheme of things, it wasn't overly harsh or limiting to them.
Read those handbooks. Talk to your kids. Give them constant reminders. Be careful of what kind of permissions you give them for off campus gatherings. Those off campus gatherings and weekends can be bad news.
"First, I do not believe the school should be able to proactively contact a college about anything unless it is something that is a felony."
There are things that BS are required by law to notify the police about, selling drugs and sexual assault being two off the top of my head. It'll be a matter of public record. As far as the rest, as private schools you and your children agree to abide by the rules as laid down by the school. Make sure you understand what you are signing.
I would assume that other schools would have something similar. Curious to know if that is not the case.
Not true for athletes. http://www.westonschools.org/index.cfm?pid=24097
When students are suspended from XXXX, these suspensions will be reported to the colleges to which the students apply. In the case of seniors who are in the midst of the college process, these suspensions will be reported promptly following their return from the suspension. In addition, if a student’s record changes in some fundamental fashion, the school will report these changes to colleges.
What you should have expected from your kid's school was a search of the room because of a report of drugs. If it was clean, then the school should never have even asked him any more about it. Report, check, nothing found. Done. If your kid was Mr. Good Kid up until then and didn't have the demon weed in his room, he should have been given a pass. Without knowing any details, I will say with 100% certainty that similar scenarios have had wildly different outcomes at your kid's school for other students. That's the case everywhere. You believed your son was the sort of student for whom the school would be protective if at all possible. You were wrong.
When faced with the possibility of major non-academic discipline, good advice is to tell your kids never to admit to anything major until they talk to you. If you and/or your kid have any friends at the school, get them up to speed and on your side ASAPy-like. Pull hard if you have any pull. (Of course, if you have real stick, then this never would be happening to your kid.) Read that rule book. Make sure the school is following their own rules. If a drug test is allowed by school rules, delay it as long as possible. Realize right then that the school is the adversary in this situation if you didn't see it before. Your kid is not important to them and never really was. If you have the means, get a lawyer on it.
Boarding schools have lots of rules, and one of their functions is to be weaponized when needed to protect the school first and foremost. That's racing.
Plagiarism and cheating are different animals all together. Expect no quarter, though of course cheating and plagiarism are as subject to arbitrary enforcement as much as any other infraction.