Do Your Students Have Criminal Records? Is It Even Fair to Ask?
Nearly three out of four colleges ask applicants a variation of the question most dreaded by those who have been on the wrong side of the law: Have you ever been convicted of a crime? Some colleges are only concerned with violent felonies, others with misdemeanors or even high-school suspensions. And what they do with that information, ostensibly gathered only to keep their campuses safe, varies widely. Relatively few reject students outright on the basis of criminal convictions, but many require those applicants to jump through so many hoops, gathering letters from probation officers and corrections officials, waiting additional months for committee deliberations, that the students give up.