Personal/Disclosure Question

[cbw25]

I got into trouble ALOT at the end of my freshman year and every situation was the result of poor judgment after drinking much too much. There were a total of 4 inccidents. 2 of them were your normal drinking in dorms violations. The 3rd one involved a fight that I got into with my friends. The charges were reduced to simple assault at the first hearing and my two friends and I were put in a diversionary program that we completed. The 4th situation occured when me and my friend were returning home from a night out and were just messing around. He jokingly made fun of me and i just gave him a shove. However it knocked him off balance (we were both drunk) and he knocked a fire extingisher off of its hook and the fire alarm went off. The building had to be evacuated and we were arrested because they had us on camerra knocking the extinguisher off the hook. The charges were dropped as soon as managment saw what happened and they just charged us the fine that they incurred due to the false alarm. I found out the hard way that i simply can not be around booze.
I transfered out after the fire extinguisher situation and have been at a small state school ever since. My grades have never been a problem and I havent gotten into any trouble since I left Philadelphia. I also have several professors and employers who would write letters of recomendation.

If anyone is still reading this, thank you. My question is do you think that all the trouble I got myself into as a result of drinking my freshman year will stop me from getting into law school. (iv'e double majored in accounting and jurisprudence just in case it does)

Also, some law schools only ask for Deans letters from institutions that will be awarding you a degree. Does this mean that I do not have to include anything official from the first school i attended besides the academic transcript?

[BurtsBees]

You will have to write and addendum explaining the four incidents exactly as you described them.  The last one is stickier, since it was just a fine for tte he false alarm, but you will still have to disclose.  Anyway, you can search for my thread on speeding trickets, and it appears from what everyone says that non-serious infractions do not have an effect on their admissions.  These would certainly be non serious things as compared to the big deals like fraud.  THe reason for disclosures is eventual difficulty getting admitted to the pard, and frankly underages won't.

I don't think you'll have to give dean certs from any schools that weren't specifically asked for either.

Glad you realized drinking is a problem, and cleaned up.  Good luck!

[clairel]

I got into trouble ALOT at the end of my freshman year and every situation was the result of poor judgment after drinking much too much. There were a total of 4 inccidents. 2 of them were your normal drinking in dorms violations. The 3rd one involved a fight that I got into with my friends. The charges were reduced to simple assault at the first hearing and my two friends and I were put in a diversionary program that we completed. The 4th situation occured when me and my friend were returning home from a night out and were just messing around. He jokingly made fun of me and i just gave him a shove. However it knocked him off balance (we were both drunk) and he knocked a fire extingisher off of its hook and the fire alarm went off. The building had to be evacuated and we were arrested because they had us on camerra knocking the extinguisher off the hook. The charges were dropped as soon as managment saw what happened and they just charged us the fine that they incurred due to the false alarm. I found out the hard way that i simply can not be around booze.
I transfered out after the fire extinguisher situation and have been at a small state school ever since. My grades have never been a problem and I havent gotten into any trouble since I left Philadelphia. I also have several professors and employers who would write letters of recomendation.

If anyone is still reading this, thank you. My question is do you think that all the trouble I got myself into as a result of drinking my freshman year will stop me from getting into law school. (iv'e double majored in accounting and jurisprudence just in case it does)

Also, some law schools only ask for Deans letters from institutions that will be awarding you a degree. Does this mean that I do not have to include anything official from the first school i attended besides the academic transcript?

generally something like this wouldn't matter, but i think the fact that you had four infractions makes it slightly more serious than your average MIP. on the other hand, if you can use it in your personal statement, i think it could look pretty good that you finally transferred into a new school (not hanging out with the same crowd that got you in trouble before, etc.) and have been clean since. as everyone here will tell you: when in doubt, disclose.

[Trivium]

I think its hard to say....I use to have a bit of an alcohol problem that culminated in me getting in trouble twice right after my freshman year. It's been almost 3 years now, however, based on my numbers, etc. these criminal infractions seem to be the reason I was deferred at one school and waitlisted at the other. I still got accepted pretty quickly to schools that were safeties, but I had to do some rethinking about schools that I originally thought were targets.