Arrests and Suspensions?

spaceandscience
Wed, 28 Nov 2012 23:01:05 +0000

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.

Short version:

He has a great turnaround story. Does he still have almost as good of a shot?

Details:

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.

Turnaround:

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.

Is he still an ivy league level applicant? How badly did this hurt his chances?