<p>I was adjudicated guilty of two counts of second degree home invasion while a sophomore in high school, with both charges having been processed shortly before and after my fifteenth birthday. I've stayed out of legal trouble since, have volunteered for over four years at an area hospital, worked two jobs for over fifty hours a week, and held several leadership positions in various registered student organizations. My GPA, as of right now, is about 3.93, with a physics and psychology double-major, though I've yet to take much beyond calculus, and might change from physics to biology. </p>
<p>If I keep up the good work, I think I'd be set to get into medical school, if not for my criminal history. Does anybody have any experience with an issue like mine? For the record, an adjudication isn't the same thing as a conviction - I can still work in healthcare, and my record will be permanently closed once I turn 30. I don't have many problems with employment applications, and am legally obliged to answer in the negative to questions regarding "criminal" or "felony convictions." However, if an employer were to ask about adjudications or juvenile court proceedings, I'd have to include some information up until the point where my record is totally off the books. </p>
<p>I talked over the phone with representatives from Michigan State and the University of Michigan's respective MD programs, and both said that cases like mine are taken on an individual basis, with adjudications not acting as an automatic disqualification. Of course, I'm concerned that the matter will be so important as to render my acceptance nearly impossible. </p>
<p>Will what I did when I was fourteen matter when I'm applying to medical schools at twenty-one, or, if I decide to obtain a master's degree, twenty-three? Traffic and parking tickets aside, I've been clean for years now, and have absolutely no intentions of doing what I did ever again. I honestly don't think I could make myself, even if I were in some awful financial pickle and unemployed. I'm proud of how much I work, but am very afraid I'll be stuck in unsatisfactory jobs for a long time to come because of the stupid mistakes I made as a young teen.</p>
<p>You will have to report your record as part of your application. (It will turn up during the mandatory criminal background check anyway. Lying on your application will get you auto-rejected and permanently blacklisted.) Questions about felonies and misdemeanors are specifically asked about on the AMCAS application. You will have a short space (200 words, I believe) to offer an explanation. Be prepared to discuss the specifics at any interviews you receive.</p>
<p>Some schools will consider you; others will reject you out of hand. And unfortunately there’s no way to tell in advance which school will do what.</p>
<p>My only suggestion is that apply to a wider variety and greater number of schools than you might ordinarily plan on. (40 instead of 25)</p>
<p>I would talk to a lawyer and see if you can get your record expunged. I know in many states you can for a single felony committed as an adult if you have not gotten into further trouble. It costs several thousand dollars in legal fees and requires going before a judge who does the expungement. In most states after the court proceedings you can legally state you have no criminal record.</p>
<p>Further, in most states the juvenile records are not accessible by law enforcement officers outside the department who made the initial arrest. They are kept in-house, usually in locked files and are not put into NCIC which is the federal criminal arrest record files maintained by the FBI nor by your states BCI files which are maintained by your state police </p>
<p>This is a second reason you should talk to a lawyer who handles criminal defense cases in your state. </p>
<p>Your defense lawyer back when you were 15 should have tried to get you into pretrial diversion program ( also known as pretrial intervention in some states) which eliminates your arrest if you have been incident free for a year or two. It can only be used once a lifetime. The problem with the sealing at age 30 is most people have made their career decisions by that time and you can not re-open all the doors that have been shut to you</p>
<p>The new criminal defense lawyer especially one who is experienced with juvenile cases would also tell you how to legally answer the med school applications and the background check that you state’s licensing board will conduct to get a physician license. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>At the very least he will tell you to say you we’re adjudicated guilty of two juvenile offenses of entering a home without the owner’s permission. He will tell you the exact semantics to use and likely to leave out the degree.</p>
<p>This will be a self-reporting situation since it won’t show up when your fingerprints are taken for a background check. In some areas the the Juvenile Division lead police officer adjudicates and In others it is a municipal judge.</p>
<p>It is usually only if you are going for a security clearance will someone physically go to each department you ever lived at to include campus security, to to view incident reports, contact cards ( whenever a cop came to your house) and juvenile cards (which just show a hit but do not disclose offense). At that point the clearance investigator will ask you about it or have you sign a juvenile record release. So again it is self-reporting.</p>
<p>The problem with Raymcr’s advice is that the disclosures required by medical schools vary by school. Some will require disclosure of sealed juvenile records. Some will require the reporting of incidents that result in diversionary and alternate programs with no permanent record. Some even require reporting traffice offenses and moving violations. A private medical school can require whatever the heck it wants from applicants. </p>
<p>The concern is whether the applicant’s past may prevent them from obtaining medical licensure which involves a deep and thorough background investigation akin to a security clearance.</p>
<p>US News had a recent blog post about applicants who have criminal issues in their past. It’s worth reading.</p>
<p>AMCAS offers a criminal background check service to medical schools; however not all med schools use their service. (I know D1’s school didn’t. Since she started med school, she has undergone 3 additional criminal background checks–one for each different medical facility she’s done a rotation at, including a fairly invasive one for the VA.) </p>
<p>Here’s the AMCAS description of what the criminal background will cover:</p>
<p>OP: Get the money together to see what juvenile adjudications mean-exactly-in your state. Every state handles these cases differently, including how to seal the record, etc. At this point to do anything else is a major mistake, and anyone telling you to do something else is giving really terrible advice. Another poster points out the requirements for disclosure to get into medical school. BEFORE you see the lawyer, find out EXACTLY what you will need to disclose on your applications(and remember, once you get to licensing, you’ll be asked all over again). AMCAS is a great place to start, but remember that the different medical schools may all have different requirements.<br>
And put things into perspective; if you haven’t declared a major yet, you’re pretty early in your college career. Find out what effect the adjudications will have before making plans now to apply to medical school.</p>
<p>If your fingerprints are screened by the FBI, they will find the conviction, regardless of youthful offender status or expungement. Trust me on that one.</p>
<p>WOWmom is correct on this one - even if you get it expunged (which is obviously the best case scenario), any issues that will result from your records will be during application for medical licensure. From what I understand, medical boards can see any arrest or conviction, expunged or otherwise. What they (and med schools) do with them once revealed on your application is up to them.</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice, everybody - I’m surprised at how many replies I’ve received, and will likely have to go back and reread some of these posts at a later point. To address a few key and recurring issues: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>I’m not eligible to have my records expunged. In the state of Michigan, only offenders with one felony conviction or adjudication can apply to have their record cleared. Since I have two, I’m out of luck. </p></li>
<li><p>My juvenile court proceedings, files, and arrest sheet are sealed or destroyed when I turn thirty. I performed a background check on myself some time ago, and both offenses still show up right off the Michigan State Police’s website. </p></li>
<li><p>Due to the nature and number of offenses, I have fingerprints that will essentially haunt me forever. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>I do feel a touch lucky, in that I’ve never had legal troubles related to substance abuse or drug dealing. Second-degree home invasion hardly seems relevant to medicine or future professional integrity, even if my morality then was clearly askew and incredibly wrong. </p>
<p>I’m not really sure what good may come of contacting a lawyer, as of the present moment. I’m probably a year or year and half off from taking the MCAT (I’m a junior now, but that’s only because of AP credits - if I choose to continue with physics, I’ll graduate in 2015, which is on schedule), and there doesn’t seem to be any good way of ridding myself of my record. </p>
<p>Hopefully good grades, volunteering, and steady employment will all work in my favor a few years down the road. I can’t adequately describe in words just how angry and upset I am at myself for having erred so early on in life. There’s no avoiding responsibility for what I did, even if I was in a rough spot - it’s just that I feel so different in so many ways now than I did then. All I want to do now is contribute positively to the world, and medicine is by far my preferred means of doing so. </p>
<p>I could really bash my head into a wall right now. What was I thinking? What was wrong with me? Damn, I really hate Past Me.</p>
<p>I agree with the lawyer bit. See a good lawyer. You wouldn’t go to a deli to get your car washed, you wouldn’t go to a car wash to get a sandwich… So go to a lawyer for legal advice – it makes sense. You really never know what a lawyer could come up with here… It’s kind of their job to deal with situations like this. =P</p>
<p>Edit: Sorry, that might’ve come off as snarky… It wasn’t supposed to, you just seem helpless, and seeing a lawyer might end up helping you… You don’t know the loopholes and nuances of the law like lawyers do, as I said, it’s their job. =P</p>
<p>Well, my biggest problem with a lawyer right now is that I can’t afford one. I have a few thousand dollars saved up, but it’s basically already spent, and I need a reserve just in case my car dies or I lose my job and don’t have a way to pay rent - my parents aren’t well-off, despite my mom having multiple graduate degrees, and I can’t count on getting financial help from them.</p>
<p>Ryan, I just saw a thread about this very issue over at sdn. At a particular school, the applicants were talking about having to submit again (?) to having all their records truthful. One applicant was worried about something that had happened as a juvenile that didn’t even go to court, and everyone was encouraging that applicant to fess up. Admit a mistake and see if it matters, since somehow it always comes out. I was surprised to see how many applicants had had some kind of legal trouble when they were young.</p>
<p>Ryan. Some schools have lawyers in their Office of General Counsel that can either help you understand your situation or refer you to someone who can help. Don’t assume. Know. </p>
<p>Oh, yeah. And for Heaven’s Sakes…stop calling it a “Home Invasion”. :eek: Gotta be a better way to spin that.</p>
<p>Edit: I googled the elements of the Michigan offense of Home Invasion in the Second Degree. IMO, “Burglary” sounds better and is what the action would have been called in most states. </p>
<p>In my state it would have been called Burglary of a Habitation… .</p>
<p>And you were fifteen. That will help. You did it twice. That will hurt. </p>
<p>Does your school have a law school nearby? Do they run a legal clinic?</p>
<p>Curmudgeon is correct on all points to include the free legal clinic to save money. They can also petition your Governor for a pardon, you can also write your local state rep and state senator if they are of the same political party as the governor to ask for a pardon. You can say you have turned your life around, you could not afford a better council at the time , and you wishmto attned medical school and practice in the state.</p>
<p>They usually are done at the end of the year, as a goodwill gesture and also when they can be buried in th newspapers without much public scrutiny. They can take years to obtain but it is better than waiting until your thirty.</p>
<p>^ While all that will help, and even if he does wait til he’s 30 and the records are “destroyed”, I’d bet anything that they are still visible to licensing bodies, so he still needs to seek legal advice from a licensed attorney.</p>