<p>You have a driving violation in addition to the shoplifting and the drinking?</p>
<p>Golani - It’s nice to hear you defend your parents. Maybe you should think about how they’d feel if you had another problem with the law or with alcohol. When you find yourself in a risky situation, just think about how much it would hurt them if you were hurt, and make a good choice.</p>
<p>A 17-year old who has a violation for driving teenagers in violation of curfew/restricted driver’s license, plus a citation for underage drinking, plus a record of shoplifting is emphatically not the type of person that your reach, match or even safety schools wish to accept. It is exactly the type of applicant they do NOT want.</p>
<p>Whether they will know of these issues is not within my area of expertise. If your “voice” comes through in your applications in the same way it comes through here; if your guidance and teacher recs reflect the person we see here, I don’t expect stellar results for your application season.</p>
<p>We constantly advise students who come here to let themselves shine through in their applications. It appears to me that you will have to hide your true self. Not a winning strategy.</p>
<p>If you wish to succeed in applications to the type of schools you’ve listed, you have a bit of time to focus on cleaning up your act. Which would be a more worthwhile activity than focusing on how to hide your act.</p>
<p>Just my opinion.</p>
<p>remember, golani, you were the one who told us your parents were more concerned with the getting caught then the activity that led to, what, yur 3rd run in with the law…</p>
<p>so obviouslly, they are trying, but still, this time, just said, well, do what you want, don’t get caught? cause that is what you led us to believe</p>
<p>ps- i knew we weren’t told the whole story</p>
<p>and please don’t try and tell us these are just the three times you have participated in stupid activities,you just haven’t gotten caught…so when yu tell us you have it under control…do you really?</p>
<p>I would think after the shoplifting thing, you would have been concerned about not breaking the law, but your priorities are all messed up</p>
<p>your loss</p>
<p>
Golani, </p>
<p>My guess is that you don’t read the Parents Forum very often or you would know that most of the parents that have commented here are among the more tolerant and forgiving parents at CC. Those of us who undoubtedly fall into the category of “preachy self-righteous” types have yet to comment.</p>
<p>I second JHS’s advice that you should retain legal counsel to help answer your questions.</p>
<p>you are aware that driving violation is just a ticket. When someone under 18 drives past 11 and they get caught they get a ticket. Its similar o to something like a speeding ticket, or a ticket u get for running a stop sign the only diference ofcourse is that when u speed or run a stop sign you can get pts assessed but when u violate curfew you cant. I dont think there is a single college in this country that look at an applicants traffic violations as a mesasure of who they are. I am willing to bet that most of you here have more than one traffic violation and that you dont really consider getting pulled over for speeding a “run in with the law” so i dont understand what all the complaining is about a curfew traffic violation.</p>
<p>well, in our state, you can lose your license until you are 18…its your lack of good judgement that should worry you, you seem to have lots of explanations to cover up stupid behavior…and are only concerened with how it will effect your college application process…not that you have done lots of stupid things and haven’t really learned much from it, but hey, your life, keep acting the fool</p>
<p>And I wonder what else you have done…usually there is more…but hey, if you are in such control, go pay for an attorney, and stop looking for free advice you don’t want to hear</p>
<p>How much are you willing to bet, golani? Nah, I won’t take your money. You have more tickets/whatever-you-call-them’s than my H and I do combined, and we’re in our 50’s.</p>
<p>Got to hand it to you, you’re way ahead of us. Maybe we’ll just give up, and let you take the prize. After all, you’re ahead of us, and you still have about 30 years to go still. We don’t have a chance.</p>
<p>All of the parental advice on this thread reminds me of how parents here cared about Lucifer and tried hard to help him, but he was sure that he knew better. Some teens posting on this site chastized parents for their advice to him just as some teens are chastizing parents now. </p>
<p>Now Lucifer is dead – alcohol overdose during his freshman year at Cornell. </p>
<p>Deja vu.</p>
<p>Many of college applications are simply going to ask, “Have you ever been arrested? If so, please explain.” Your explanations don’t seem to go very far. If I were an admissions office, I am SURE this is something I’d take into consideration, especially with so many other fine applicants out there. The first rule of admissions for an admissions officer is “cover your butt” - and your application will leave him/her awfully exposed.</p>
<p>
Then why do you even bring it up? No parents here, that I can see, are expressing concern re a minor traffic violation you may have incurred.</p>
<p>The issue here is a threesome of violations which go beyond minor traffic violations, in spirit if not in the letter of the law. The more serious issue is your attitude. I’m sure it is possible to create an application which masks your attitude about responsibility, about ethics, about your relationship to the law, about the type of choices you enjoy making and rationalizing.</p>
<p>If you succeed in presenting yourself as other than you are, you might have great success. As I said before, if you come across in your applications as you come across here, you will not have much success.</p>
<p>Your whole focus appears to be on making a case for why your actions shouldn’t really be anyone’s concern, why they shouldn’t really count. You can hope that an admissions office will see it that way. I think all of us know that an admissions office will NOT see it that way. So your only hope is to present yourself as different from who you are.</p>
<p>Not something you will get any support for on this board.</p>
<p>P.S. “All the complaining about a curfew traffic violation” is in the context of the whole picture you have presented, the attitude you convey and the goal you have in posting this thread. Which is to be told that it’s no big deal, not to worry, you’ll do great. We don’t think you will and we don’t think you should. Unless you want to start to look at things a little differently.</p>
<p>Some here are posting totally out of concern for you, because they have seen something a bit too much like this before - in Lucifer. If you haven’t already, search for the threads from and about him. No one wants to see you end up as he did, golani. You don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in he** that you will. He didn’t think there was a chance either.</p>
<p>Golani:</p>
<p>Your writing on this board is markedly illogical. Like Jmmom, who is one of the most helpful Moms on this board, I agree that your inability to communicate respectfully with adults is a problem that may damage your essays and your personal references. </p>
<p>Defining the problem is always the first step.
Parents on this board keep telling you that you have not defined the problem logically. If you don’t know what the problem is, you will not get the outcome you want. </p>
<p>Your poor judgment and your underlying belief system and your misplaced priorities are The Problem. </p>
<p>The citations for underage drinking, the violation of both curfew and number of people in your parent’s van ticket and the shoplifting are the symptoms.</p>
<p>Two lawyers and a lawyers wife among many others have responded to you but you make poor arguments instead of listening. Perhaps posting on a parents board isn’t your scene.</p>
<p>Do you have any idea how lame and immature bragging about “running from the cops” sounds from a person about to apply to college? Especially to the colleges on your list? </p>
<p>I am sorry but your wasting your energy and our time talking about how 15-17 year olds are just as responsible as drinkers as adults and the “Running from the Cops” posts made me truly cringe for you! You sound like you are in middle school in these posts. </p>
<p>A speeding ticket or a curfew ticket and a 17 year old driving six people in a van is indeed “a run in with the law.” Perhaps college committees will not do a criminal/traffic history but you have been told ten ways here that in this information age, you will never really know what information the college committee gets about you. It is a new world. You have heard of Facebook and Google and blogging world and you do know that a small fee pulls up all records that are not expunged. Your references are not obligated to show you what they write or say about your character. Privacy is not what it used to be. Privacy is an illusion.</p>
<p>Although it is quite true, as someone else posted, that some very lax parents raise wonderful human beings, you are not going to convince anyone here that you anything but quite confused when you shoplift, pick up six friends in a van after curfew or drink since 9th grade “responsibly.” (right)</p>
<p>You are not focused on the things that make college admission happen.</p>
<p>You are caught up in impressing the wrong people. </p>
<p>You ignored my first post about brain development and PET scans and lack of Excutive brain function in teen brains. </p>
<p>And my husband often represents adults and people your age who are ticketed for traffic offenses. I personally have spent some time in Remedial Driving School to get points off my own record for a speeding ticket and now I watch my speed carefully. I did not like the consequences to my insurance premiums or the reality that my record could become cumulative if I did not clear it. You could have hired a lawyer and gone to court to ask to go to Remedial Driving School and possibly had that ticket diverted.</p>
<p>The first thing we were required to do in Remedial Driving School was to sit in a circle and state our offense. This seemed to take a few people by surprise. They did not think they did anything wrong. They just wanted to clear their records.</p>
<p>You were graded (by the way) on your level of maturity here. There were several people like you who were grossly minimizing their offenses as if the law did not apply to them and they were just “unlucky” and the laws were silly. If the police officer in charge did not think each person actually took responsibility for their bad choice and arrogant disregard of the state driving laws, even though we all had to stay in school 8 hours regardless and watch movies and take and pass written exams, he would not recommend them for diversion and they lost the chance to clear their records. </p>
<p>A few people in my session were not recommended for diversion and record expungement. They spent the whole day there but got nothing out of it.
kinda like this thread…oy!</p>
<p>Particularly for the teens who may be lurking, here’s a post by Lucifer11287.
"Take your talk of “haze” elsewhere - I enjoy drinking, but I certainly don’t go through life in a haze. I’m on track to either double or triple major plus get an MEng in 8 semesters, I run marathons for fun, and generally live life to its fullest. I do not drink myself into a stupor and waste days, months and years. Drinking is a recreational activity that I very much enjoy, but I keep it in its place - drinking only with friends and only when it won’t interfere with my other goals (I’m not Bode Miller, I don’t drink before marathons or prelims). Alcohol hasn’t limited me in any way, nor has it ever prevented me from achieving success. I’m sorry that alcohol has caused you such problems, binx, but I’m not telling you to drink. I’m just counteracting the anti-alcohol posts that everyone else seems to have and saying that it is possible for alcohol to be a positive, enjoyable thing. That, and also showing that liability wise that drunk driving (or other dangerous activity after drinking, like drunk jetskiing) is by far the biggest problem because it is far easier and far more likely that someone will drink and drive and kill themselves/someone else than it is they will drink enough to stop breathing.</p>
<p>dke, that is ridiculous even for me. It’s one thing for 16 year olds and 18 year olds to drink, quite another for 11 year olds to drink.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4, there are plenty of teens who are capable and competent enough to handle themselves and don’t need much, if any, supervision; the amount of supervision necesscary depends on the kid."
That was posted Jan. 11 of this year in the Parents’ Cafe.</p>
<p>Here’s a link to a thread after Lucifer died from an alcohol overdose after partying with friends at U Va. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=159778&highlight=lucifer+alcohol+died[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=159778&highlight=lucifer+alcohol+died</a></p>
<p>It’s easy to verify that this is true by using a search engine His hometown newspaper, the St. Louis Post Dispatch even did a story about how an admired Cornell freshman with an outstanding academic record drank himself to death at U Va. The story also says he posted here and elswhere as
Lucifer11287.</p>
<p>see the article called
In postings, a tragic portrait of defiance
Princetonian.com</p>
<p>I still think about his parents and his friends often. His CC posts were copied and remarked on online after his death so I imagine his parents have read them and they may also have seen his facebook page which was reproduced on blogs even when his page was removed.</p>
<p>He had writing skills, high energy, wit and talent that will never be realized now. My son is 19, so I can’t imagine the loss they are experiencing now.</p>
<p>thats a very unfortunate situation. Its a shame it had to happen, but i dont understand what that proves. that you can die from alcohol poisoning? Seems to me like this kid did live a fulfilling life, did not live life in a haze, and did not let alcohol get in his way of studies etc…he made a mistake, a fatal and terrible mistake, and thats how he died. Not from liver problems, not from suicide, or other long term alcohol related problems. We should all learn from his mistake to be careful about drinking. I dont think it shows that drinking itself is wrong, but merely how you do it.</p>
<p>what you don’t see is it wasn’t a mistake, it was a choice, not tp die, but to drink so much</p>
<p>good thing you have sooooo much experience so you know it all</p>
<p>rite rite i agree with you i dont understand what the problem is. He chose to drink too much. I think if he were around rite now he would tell us that his choice was also his mistake. I dont see what ur trying to prove to me.</p>
<p>Golani - I hope you have a nice life…and don’t meet up with someone like me on your college admissions committee.</p>