school admission asks for criminal record

[yougene]

1. Have you ever been convicted of a crime other than a minor traffic violation?

3. Have you entered a plea of guilty, of no contest, of nolo contendere, an Alford plea to a criminal charge, or a plea under a first offender act?

When I was under 18 I had charges that were sealed under the 1st offenders act. I assume the record is sealed from the school( it's a state school if that matters ) but I'm not sure. Will they be able to access this information? Should I not tell them about my sealed record?

 

[Banquo]

if you have been convicted and you want to answer truthfully, then you probably need to answer "yes." give the school's admissions office a call and ask them whether you need to disclose the conviction just to be sure, though. this is a fairly common question. chances are there are a lot of people in the same situation as you. it's usually much worse to get caught being untruthful when it comes to admissions applications.

 

[yougene]

I see.

Is there a possibility they can attain sealed records? It was a couple misdemeanors handled on the state level.

 

[Banquo]

the great big lie about "sealed" records is that someone somewhere almost always has a copy of the unsealed record. by not disclosing a juvenile conviction you are taking a gamble that someone will uncover this. and with a lot of criminal records now being housed online, even private companies are getting into the act of storing this information.

i would still say to make an anonymous call to an admissions counselor to see what they say about the situation, since this sort of question comes up all the time. not to scare you, but if you are going for some sort of professional certification just be aware that you could face further background checks based on the same answers you provide on this application in the future. (i am anecdotally aware of people that have gotten in trouble in this type of situation.) it might also be worth running a background check on yourself at some point to see what comes up.

 

[phishy2]

from the 2 questions u copied, the real question is if they want to know of sealed juvenile records, which is not clear and should be asked.
if you are attending a school leading to professional licensure, such as nursing school, certain states even require the disclosure of sealed juvenile records to obtain licensure.
i was fairly shocked to see that louisiana required the disclosure of all sealed juvenile records and any expunged adult records for physician licensure, even arrests that were not prosecuted
however, if it does seem like your juvenile record may need to be discussed in future licensure, it might be best for ur school to know, so that they can support you fully in the future

 

[yougene]

Thanks for the replies.
I'm not going into a licensed profession. I'm going for a BA from a tech university( not an engineering degree ).

So I should ask if they want to know of sealed records.
Is there anything else I should ask? If they do background checks?

The incidents were school related, perhaps they have an unsealed record.

 

[Banquo]

off the top of my head...this is not legal advice...

I see on your admissions application that you ask people to disclose criminal convictions other than minor traffic violations. Would you be able to tell me whether this includes sealed or expunged convictions that occurred before an applicant became an adult?

Do you know whether these types of convictions have ever prevented someone from being admitted to your school?

I have a sealed conviction for some minor offenses that were committed when I was much younger, do you know whether I should disclose these for this question?

(if you are feeling ballsy Do you know if the school runs criminal background checks on applicants to verify their criminal records? What type of background checks do they run?

 

[yougene]

Thanks for your thoughts

Some thoughts of my own.
1) Doing some research I ran into conflicting information. One questionable source has this to say

Employment and college admissions

http://www.abanet.org/crimjust/juvjus/cjmcollconseq2.html

Most traditional juvenile codes have provided over the years that an adjudication of delinquency is not a criminal conviction, permitting youth to respond in the negative to questions in college or employment applications asking whether the applicant has ever been convicted of a crime. However, such applications increasingly include specific references to juvenile adjudications, or as to whether the applicant has ever been arrested, and that creates greater problems for the individual seeking employment or admission to an institution of higher education. The wording of the question is obviously crucial, as is the interpretation of the question’s intent and the information sought by the employment or admissions office. Often, if a juvenile adjudication is not viewed by the state as a conviction of crime, if it need not be revealed upon inquiry, or if it has been expunged, it will not need to be reported on an application form for employment or for admission to college. However, a complete inquiry should be made discreetly on behalf of the youth as to the employer’s or admissions officer’s intent and interpretation of the quality of the inquiry before answering because a false answer may be more damaging to the applicant than an affirmative truthful response.

2) Also according to this site the The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act does not allow a school to disclose certain files

http://www.greatschools.net/cgi-bin/showarticle/2861

FERPA and IDEA prohibit schools from disclosing your child's records to anyone without your written consent. The only exceptions are:

* School officials, including teachers, in your child’s district with a legitimate educational interest as defined in the school procedures
* School officials in the school district to which your child intends to transfer (Before the records are sent, however, you will want to review them and challenge their content, if necessary.)
* Certain state and national education agencies, if necessary, for enforcing federal laws
* Anyone to whom a state statute requires the school to report information
* Accrediting and research organizations helping the school, provided they guarantee confidentiality
* Student financial aid officials
* People who have court orders, provided the school makes reasonable efforts to notify the parent or student before releasing the records
* Appropriate people in health and safety emergencies such as doctors, nurses, and fire marshals
* Law enforcement and judicial authorities in certain cases

With the exception of the people listed above, schools must have your permission to release material from your child's records to anyone other than yourself. When requesting release of the records, the school must tell you which records are involved, why they have been requested, and who will receive them. Likewise, if you want someone outside the school system to see your child's records, you will be asked to sign a release granting such permission. All of these rules have been instituted to protect your privacy and that of your child.

3) I want to do a background check on myself. Any recommendations on a service?

 

[phishy2]

i am not sure about this, but if you want to try and save money, ACLU or other civil liberty groups might run a free background check for you....depending upon the exact reason u want to run it
i know that they do assist people in making sure that expungements are truely off ur record

 

[tobala]

^ That's an interesting angle. I wonder if you could hire a PI to do an investigation on...yourself.

 

[sunset117]

its sealed, a university wont do extensive enough background checks on their thousands of applicants to find juvenile records

my friend got arrested in hs for dwi/pot poss and plead guilty. included it on his apps and got into an okay school....

its sealed tho, they dont check applicants, i've heard tho that some schools will check accepted people, or people that enroll, and or people that get in trouble. BUT, they are doing basic ones and just looking for people that said no, but had been arrested adn it shows up in a nonextensive background check