More and more colleges are asking applicants for an accounting of discipline issues in high school and recording suspensions and expulsions as part of the process of limiting liability or risk. They are also expecting high schools to send documentation to corroborate the stories. Applicants are having to talk about that fight in their sophomore year, the time they came slightly stoned to third period, their in-school suspension for skipping out on 6th period, and when they stole 20 bucks from a gym locker and it is making applicants and civil rights advocates as well as educators nervous. Colleges claim they understand the context, and that youthful indiscretions are part of the age, they are still obliged to look for patterns of violence or stalking behavior or arson etc. Educators note that there is no evidence this data has led to safer campuses, and that there are years of maturity differences between a 16 or 17 year old and his 20 year old counterpart, and that this data will often make it harder for minority students or those in high risk school districts to gain access no matter how responsible they have become in the intervening years. Statistics show that it is more likely that a black or Hispanic will get suspended or expelled in high school than their white counterparts. http://start.toshiba.com/news/read/category/News/hashtag/undefined/article/the_associated_press-should_high_school_punishments_go_on_college_appli-ap "How many times should a student pay? You make a mistake when you're a ninth grader and it hurts you when you are applying to college?" asked Sharon Contreras, superintendent in Syracuse. Contreras said her urban district is particularly sensitive since being among those singled out by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in recent years for suspending black students at higher rates than white students, often for subjective, nonviolent offenses like insubordination. The district agreed to change its practices under a 2014 agreement with Schneiderman's office. About half of U.S. high schools disclose disciplinary information about their students in at least some cases, according to a report last May by the Center for Community Alternatives, though the majority has no written disclosure policy. The same report found 73 percent of colleges and universities collect high school disciplinary information and 89 percent of those use it in deciding admission. But only 25 percent of the universities had formal policies guiding the use, the report said, and less than a third of schools had trained admissions staff to interpret disciplinary findings. Two questions: should these questions be asked by Universities and should high schools divulge the information? I am nervous about this, especially if there is no written formal disclosure policies for students and parents to read with guidelines either in the High School or the college describing exactly what information is given out, how it is interpreted and what is done with the results. I am also concerned if there is no trained admissions staff interpreting those results.
I think parents should tell their children as they enter High School to stay out of trouble and behave themselves and they won't have anything to worry about when it comes time to enter college.
