Criminal and Disciplinary issues in background - Grad School

Graduate School
1

<p>I am currently applying to Graduate Business school and I have a few items in my past. </p>

<p>-In 2003, when I was 19, I was involved in a fraternity prank that I pulled with 5 other kids my age. Long story short, I was charged with impersonation of a police officer (the charge is criminal impersonation, but that charge was later dropped) and possession of a forged ID. The forged ID was a phony NY drivers license used to get into bars. The cop thing was totally bogus and we were just harmlessly messing around with another kid our age who we knew from high school, BUT, his mom ended up calling the cops. In reality, the whole thing was blown way out of proportion but I pled guilty to one misdemeanor charge for possession of the phony ID (I was never charged with any type of forgery or fraud). I previously worked at Credit Suisse and disclosed all of this to them, including all the court records, and they had no problem with it.</p>

<p>-Also, during college, I was put on disciplinary probation a few times for computer related stuff. The first times were for getting caught downloading music off a p2p network (like napster). The third time, senior year, was b/c I downloaded a program onto a university computer that turned out to be a virus, and they thought that I put it there on purpose to steal people's credit card information. In the end, the just put me on probation for it, and I obviously wasn't trying to steal cc info, otherwise there would have been many more charges. It was in a psychology lab computer room that this happened, but I received a grade in the class nonetheless and I graduated with my poli sci/psych major. </p>

<p>All this info is in my file at my school, that will be sent to the grad school (the dean of students told me that she is obligated to send everything in the file to any grad school that asks for it). </p>

<p>Nevertheless, I am not planning on withholding anything during the application/background check process.</p>

<p>Is there anything here that you think is absolutely a deal breaker for my application?</p>

2

<p>You are usually asked to disclose convictions on applications. If you are given space to explain your convictions, be as brief and dispassionate as possible.</p>

<p>The conviction information will be seen by the graduate school and will be passed on to the director of graduate studies in the department to which you are applying, but the admissions committee will not see any of it.</p>

<p>As to your disciplinary probation, if it is not on your transcript, the admissions committee will not see it, nor will they ask for it.</p>

<p>In other words, you will face no difficulties in admission because of your record.</p>

<p>I have just noticed that your question is about Business school. My answer may not apply to Business school procedures, which may differ substantially from Arts and Sciences PhD admissions. Try posting your query in the MBA forum.</p>