<p>Start counseling teens who are drug users somewhere or something such as that. Prove that you've changed, don't just say it (ie: essay).</p>
<p>The one thing that blows my mind about the OP's story is that the kids received huge consequences as a direct result of calling 911 for help. Of course, they deserve those consequences. However, I am very concerned that this practice of automatically notifiying the police when drugs are involved will deter people from calling for medical help in emergency situations. This is very dangerous.</p>
<p>Vesper -- You need an excellent lawyer RIGHT NOW!!! You need to meet with this lawyer before you go to court on Tuesday to find out what all your options are and the best way to handle your situation. (And by "before court," I don't mean 15 minutes before court, I mean today or tomorrow.) Also, this lawyer cannot be helpful Uncle Bob who does mostly estate planning or corporate taxes; this has to be someone who handles juvenile criminal cases all the time and knows the judges, probation department, and overall juvenile system in your jurisdiction. Turn off your computer and go get a lawyer this minute! Please.</p>
<p>Vesper: Police officers, to be quite honest, are just talking out of their ass. They want to scare you because they think it's fun. I'm willing to bet they know next to nothing about college admissions. It could affect whether your accepted or not, but unless it's rape or murder, they won't throw your application away.</p>
<p>For both Vesper and Jmcatch742: do not mention this on your application. First of all, you were both minors and no matter what happens you can not be convicted. The correct term for juvenilles is "adjudicated." If it's the same way in your state, a lawyer should tell you that the legal, honest answer to the question "Have you ever been convicted of a misdemeanor or felony?" is no, unless it happened when you were 18. However, if a question asks were you put on probation, and you were, you "must" ansqer yes. "Must" meaning you're supposed to, but off the record, I would not recommend saying yes to this. Furthermore, be careful of the wording. A lot of questions ask have you been placed on probation in regards to school, and most likely the answer is no. You were placed on probation for something that had asbolutley nothing to do with school, so once again the legal answer to this question would be no.
If the legal answer to any simliar question should be yes, you have a tough decsion. On one hand, if you completley ignore the question and put no, then you are risking them finding out that you lied about it, which will almost definitely deny you from a school, even one that's not ultra selective. On the other hand, if you put yes you may be decreasing your chances so much that it would be worth the risk to put no.
To my knowledge, because you are juvenilles and the offenses were misdemeanors, the only court system that should have record of this was the county or whatever court system you were tried in. This means that if a univeristy wanted to find information about your legal record, they would have to directly contant your country court ssytem to obtain the records, and they are certainly not going to do this for every applicant they have. If this is the case, then there's no point in saying yes. However, this I am not 100% sure of.
A question arises: if "convicted" does not apply to juvenilles, then why don't they ask if you were "adjudicated" or "convicted". To be honest, I don't really have a good answer. My best guess is that they are either not legally allowed to ask questions to a minor, or to an adult regarding their legal history as a minor, but I'm not sure about this. I was also told that colleges ask this question, not so much for admissions purposes (because they expect people to lie), but if anything happens in the future when they want to kick you out for whatever reason, they can use the fact that you lied on your app to kick you out of the university, assuming they can dig up your legal record. Personally, I don't really agree with the last thing I said, but that's what I was told.</p>
<p>Hoped that helped.</p>
<p>cacaitsmom,
Bravo.</p>
<p>it's not like your the only applicant to ever do the drug, have the drug, be associated with the drug. you're just the one who got caught. remember that. use the situation to your advantage if you think you can pull it off. s**t sucks.</p>
<p>Do not hide any convictions on your app unless you are absolutely, positively certain that they have been expunged or sealed. If it <em>ever</em> comes out (i.e., you're picked up on-campus for something trivial) you may be hosed.</p>
<p>The days when juvenile records were entirely sealed and expunged automatically upon turning 18 are over in many states. Your record may well show up in the FBI computer system.</p>
<p>Picture this: A campus cop stops you for speeding on campus. He runs your driver's license and bang, your rap sheet comes up on his computer. If he's the curious sort, he may check to see if you reported that conviction. If you didn't, then you'll get busted for lying on your application and bang, you're out the door with an expulsion on your transcript. Needless to say, you won't get your money back.</p>
<p>Call your prospective college's admissions office and find out whether or not they want you to declare criminal adjudications/convictions which occurred before the age of 18. It's way better to be safe than sorry.</p>
<p>I think a lot of college admissions people understand that kids make youthful mistakes and would take that into consideration when reviewing applications. Show that you've learned from it. But there's no excusing a flat-out, willful lie on an admissions app - that's showing immaturity and disrespect for academic integrity and the institution.</p>
<p>Vesper, you don't need any college counseling at the moment, right now what you need is to hire a defense attorney. After the legal matters are settled, I'm sure if you ask he'll read the question and advise on what to put on the application.</p>
<p>Vesper posted in February...</p>