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Youthful Indiscretions Can Come Back To Haunt Students

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By STEVE ROSEN McClatchy Newspapers

Published: February 3, 2008

Here's one more reason high schoolers need to keep their noses clean and stay out of trouble: It could make the difference between a college acceptance or denial letter.

Consider the example of a high school honors student who was a class leader, a star athlete and had all the grades. He had his ticket punched to an Ivy League school until being charged with underage possession of alcohol.

It's not beyond the realm of possibility for college admissions officers to deny this application, according to lawyer Charles Fairchild of Kansas City, Mo.

"If admissions officers see something they don't like, they won't admit you," said Fairchild, author of "Dude, What Are My Rights? The Self-Help Legal Survival Guide for Ages 18-25."

Fairchild, who has worked as a volunteer to help college students deal with legal problems, said parents and high school students are "alarmingly uninformed" about how run-ins with the law or school-related disciplinary issues can negatively affect the college admissions process.

Zero Tolerance

To be sure, Fairchild acknowledged that teens will make mistakes and need to be held accountable. But he believes tougher criminal statutes and community standards on incidents such as underage drinking and drug-related offenses have created a "zero-tolerance policy" and "higher hurdles for kids to have to clear," especially high school juniors and seniors.

He said teens need to understand how behavior and character issues can be as important as grades, SAT scores and extracurricular activities in winning admission to a college.

Not long ago, stealing test answers, sneaking beers into a high school dance and other "youthful indiscretions" meant taking punishment from the principal and parents, and moving on, he said. That's no longer the case.

Now, more colleges want to hear about these missteps, too. Many admissions officers are more closely scrutinizing the behavior of prospective students, especially in the aftermath of the shooting rampage at Virginia Tech University in April.

Institutions are being held to greater standards of accountability. And with enormous competition to attend many schools, admissions officers may be weighing more heavily any red flags on a student's application involving previous trouble or crimes.

Last year, Common Application, a nonprofit group that produces an application packet used by more than 300 schools, introduced discipline questions on its four-page form.

Under the new questions, the student and the high school's guidance counselor must disclose any disciplinary violations from the ninth grade on that resulted in "probation, suspension, removal, dismissal or expulsion from the institution." In addition, students must acknowledge whether they have been convicted of a misdemeanor, felony or other crime.

Fairness Questions

Admissions experts say the questions are aimed at keeping students safe.

Fairchild, however, said the Common Application question raises other issues. Among them: Can the admissions person properly interpret the offense, its severity and the likelihood of repeat offenses? Are they trained to effectively screen this information? Could there be bias?

Problem students, to be sure, are in the minority. Of the 266,087 students who used the Common Application last year, only 2.32 percent said they received school discipline and only about 0.25 percent reported a conviction, according to the Los Angeles Times.

As for financial aid, drug convictions can affect students but generally only when they are already in college.

"Offenses that occurred before the student was in college ... will not disqualify the student from receiving aid," said Kalman Chany, author of "Paying for College Without Going Broke."

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