When schools say they do background checks on you, is it just your criminal record? Do schools ever contact your undergrad for information? i.e. if you had an alcohol violation as a freshman (hehe..) that stayed within your Residential Life office, will this show up?
Do schools contact your undergrad for background checks?
- Thread starter LAman10
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If you had an alcohol violation, then it should have showed up when you disclosed it on the AMCAS, when it asked whether you were charged with anything academic-related.
I was caught by mistake actually. I wasn't drinking (religiously against alcohol)... I was just in the wrong dorm at the wrong time. When I met with the residential dean, he understood and believed me. he wasn't able to remove it from the record, but he noted that I was "not held accountable for the incident". Thus, I didn't disclose it on AMCAS. I wasn't subjected to any punishment or anything. Just met with him, walked away, and that was the end of it.
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I think that an alcohol violation at your school will show up. You should check to see if it's still in fact in your file (sometimes they lost those things...), but if it is, you will need to report it and write an explanation for your schools. I don't think one alcohol violation will be the kiss of death at MD or DO schools as long as you can show that you aren't a party animal and that you have learned grown/matured from the experience.
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Then you can have your dean write a dean's certification about it if it ever comes up. Problem solved.
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Yeah, this might come up for him as well, because it is likely that the violation will come up on the background check. If the dean couldn't remove it at the very least he can explain that the OP wasn't involved... That is of course, if he remembers the OP and the situation and is certain enough the OP wasn't involved to write a letter stating that.
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Yeah, that is true in a lot of cases. They also run the checks on students at the top of the waitlist at some schools. Either way, you might want to get an idea what you can say/do once they do run the background check in advance. I would just make an appt. with the dean and explain the situation. See what he recommends. This way it will be fresh in his mind if it does come up after an acceptance.
wait...i'm confused....i thought that the checks that schools run are criminal checks....in order to get this info that means that they are checking with the schools themselves, not through the "check" they run right?
