Criminal Background Question on app

eastcoascrazy
Tue, 11 Sep 2012 18:49:51 +0000

OP, I think you are missing the point several posters are making. The appearance of lying or of not telling the full truth on an application can come back, years later, to bite your son.

You really can’t say that you know what your child’s employment plans or future schooling plans, or even what his eventual college major will be. Someday he might end up wanting a law degree, or wanting a security clearance, or deciding to apply to medical school.

Sally’s and LurkerDad’s points are that playing semantic games or parsing the technicalities of the language of the application questions to avoid divulging a past indiscretion may not be the best idea when considering the long term consequences of lying by ommission.

Thank you, sallyawp and TXArtemis for the law school and bar exam points. I just read several blogs by law school admissions persons, one from Michigan, and one from Yale. They strongly stated that it is best to divulge EVERYTHING, because eventually when taking the bar exam it ALL has to be divulged anyway, and the state bars do not look kindly on legal issues that were not divulged on the law school applications (which the states go back and look at).