<p>My best friend ever (we met each other at around 10 years old, he recently moved), was arrested for possession of marijuana about half a year ago. Otherwise, he's a stellar student and a definite ivy league candidate -- not a shoe-in, but he has a serious chance at the ivies. At the upper ivies I'd guess he was in about the middle 50% of accepted and attending, and 65-ish% waitlisted, 75+% rejected. </p>
<p>Short version:</p>
<p>He has a great turnaround story. Does he still have almost as good of a shot?</p>
<p>Details: </p>
<p>He has ivy-tier extra-curricular activities, summer research (math and chemistry programs) experience, the whole shebang. He started a digital micro-lending company. His art has been shown in some small galleries and he is the captain of speech and debate as well as of math and science club, science olympiad, and numerous other clubs and teams. He has participated with me in numerous JPL and NASA competitions, and jointly holds a US record for rocket altitude, given by the National Association of Rocketry. He got to AIME but no farther. </p>
<p>Turnaround: </p>
<p>After he was arrested, he became co-Founder and co-CEO of my anti-substance abuse non-profit, which has international collaborations and a presidential service award. He has a Congressional medal for his volunteering in this corporation's activities.</p>
<p>Is he still an ivy league level applicant? How badly did this hurt his chances?</p>
<p>Also, he’s a junior now and the arrest happened while he was a sophomore. </p>
<p>Predicted final UW GPA: 3.87 +/- 0.02
He’s taking all AP’s and has some college chemistry courses at a local community college.
He received a 34 ACT and a 2240 SAT.</p>
<p>He needs to take this up with his guidance counselor. In particular, he needs to find out whether that arrest will affect his ability to apply for federal financial aid. Certain drug convictions disqualify students for federal aid, so no federal loans, no work-study, no Pell grant, etc. Often this can mean the student becomes ineligible for state-based aid too.</p>
<p>His issue is not whether or not he is a viable Ivy candidate. It is much bigger than that.</p>
<p>I have no clue whether any particular admissions committee will conclude that one marijuana arrest when he was 15 is a serious black mark. Some may, others may not. I doubt anybody can quantify something like that.</p>
<p>But I think you’re seriously overestimating your friend’s chances, apart from his past legal troubles. His GPA and test scores are really good, but they’re not out of sight. And I think you’re inferring a much bigger difference between the pool of admitted applicants at HYP and the pool of applicants who are wait-listed and denied. By and large, the wait-listed applicants are just as good as those who are accepted. It’s not the quality of their credentials that gets them the skinny envelope; it’s the limited number of beds in the freshman dorms. And very, very many unsuccessful applicants are that good, too.</p>
<p>Should your friend apply to Ivies and similarly selective colleges and universities? Sure. He seems qualified. Will he be better than 3/4 of unsuccessful applicants? Probably not. If he’s roughly at the median compared to enrolled freshmen, then he’ll probably be roughly at the median compared to unsuccessful applicants, too.</p>
<p>He may well have, as you say, “a serious shot” at these colleges and universities, but bear in mind that “a serious shot” at Harvard, Yale or Princeton is still < 10%.</p>
<p>But I also seriously doubt most schools will hold a single instance of marijuana possession against him if he’s got no other blemishes on his record. Most schools would have to eject half their student bodies if possession were going to be treated as a serious crime.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean his chances are any better/worse than any other applicant (the usual 1 in 10) and yes, there may be an impact on his eligibility for financial aid. But he shouldn’t not apply somewhere just because of this one incident when he was 15. He just has to acknowledge that he was immature and made a mistake. But why the fixation on ‘ivy league?’ There are many, many schools of comparable excellence that aren’t ‘ivy league’ and many that are better depending on what area you are going into and which school you are talking about.</p>
<p>The legal resolution after the arrest makes a difference: was he convicted? did he participate in a diversion program to expunge his record? An arrest is only the start of the legal process, and the outcome makes a difference.</p>
<p>He did work and whatnot, I’m a little shady on the specifics, but it was an arrest at the old lot which is by our school and technically school property (no one had a clue that it was).
He was not convicted, and wouldn’t have to report it if he wasn’t suspended for it.</p>
<p>M’s Mom, I’ve been trying to talk him out of the Ivy League for this reason, but I have no idea about his financial eligibility. Is this eligibility severely hampered, let’s say for Pell Grants, for a simple marijuana arrest? Granted, this was technically “on school property,” so he was suspended.</p>
<p>It’s not your responsibility to “talk him out of” applying to any of the Ivies. Do however encourage him to get the facts about his eligibility for federal and state aid. His guidance counselor (and lawyer if it got that far) can help him find that information. You also should encourage him to sort through his family finances, and make certain that he has at least one affordable & academically safe institution on his list.</p>
<p>You’ve given some fairly specific information about your best friend. Please remember that this is a public forum and it would be a shame if a mutual classmate or a admissions rep stumbled across this information and was able to identify him.</p>