Strange Situation on Application

[flanagan10]

I have an application question to pose to the board.

I am currently a 4th year undergraduate, who will be finishing his degree this year at a top-tier research institution. I have a decent GPA (3.5, our school is notoriously difficult). I have extensive research experience at 3 research institutions. I have worked closely with two very, very, very well known clinical psychologists. I have great computer, SPSS, and statistics skills. Currently, I have two co-authorships in press on empirical articles, and I have two book chapter co-authorships, one that is published, and one that is in preparation. I have wonderful recommendations. I scored in the 95th percentile on my GREs.

That being said, I am going to take 2 years off and work more, and obtain more publications and research experience.

I think overall, given those statistics, I am a good candidate to get into at least some PhD programs. But I have this additional obstacle, and I am unsure how to approach it.

Last year, my mother got very sick and was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. I was quite upset by this, and one night, I got very intoxicated at a party. On the way home, I had a verbal altercation with a faculty member who confronted me in the student union saying that I was intoxicated, and I needed to go to the hospital. I yelled at him for about 2 minutes, and I finally went back to my dorm room, and went to sleep.

On Monday morning, I was called in by the Dean, who decided that despite my situation being understandable, she needed to bring my case to the Disciplinary Committee. The Committe assigned me "suspended suspension" which means that I did not have to leave school, but it appears on my transcript. The transcripts reads "Suspended Suspension, June 05."

This being said, I have learned a lot from this experience. I began my own psychotherapy to resolve my anger about my mother's terminal illness, and I also have completely stopped drinking.

My questions are:

1) Do I mention this in my application---perhaps include a written statement about it?

2) How will schools view this situation? Will they care as long as there is a reasonable explanation?

3) One of my recommenders----a very well-known researcher---mentioned that she would be willing to include a few sentences about it in my recommendation, since she knew me at the time, and can talk about my experience and how it does not reflect some deep character flaw.

Any suggestions are appreciated. I'd still like to be a clinical psychologist someday, and I'd hope that yelling at someone while drunk wouldn't destroy that aspiration.

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[50960]

If I were you I would get a lawyer and get that removed from your record. You did not hurt anyone, and who amonst us has not got drunk during college and made an ass of him/herself?? Fight this. If you do nothing then YES this could effect you graduate future as far as admission goes.

 

[psychgeek]

I agree with psisci; that sounds like a crappy way to treat a student going through a tough time and yelling at someone while drunk in college isn’t exactly huge deal anyway. Do you have any ability to fight this now? Unfortunately the time to involve lawyers may have been prior to the disciplinary hearing, but is there a way you could appeal this and get another hearing? Could one of the professors you are working with help in any way? At the very least you could have a lawyer look into exactly what information would be released and threaten a lawsuit over any part of it that could be disputed. I know this doesn’t answer your question, but it seems terribly unfair that you would have to worry about this every time you see get the crime/arrest/disciplinary action question.

To answer your actual questions

1) Don’t mention this if you can avoid it. Find out what information will be released by your school and read the questions regarding crime/arrest/disciplinary action carefully. If you do have to mention it, you will definitely want to also include a written statement explaining the circumstances.

2) It may affect your chances of admission, but I don’t think this would be a deal-breaker at many schools. This is particularly true if you have a couple of years of good behavior between the incident and your app. After all, it isn’t like you shot someone or something.

3) I wouldn’t do this. Your letters of recommendation sound like they will be really good, and I don’t think you want anything to detract from that.

Good luck and I hope you find a graduate school with a little more compassion than your undergraduate institution.

 

[RainbowTVP]

Yeah- I agree about the recommendation letters, NOTHING negative should be mentioned.

I would go to the dean or another administrator if you have a realtionship with one (or even a faculty member who is supportive) and ask about having it removed from your record.

If there haven't been any incidents since, it is very likely they will comply. If they say no, then I would seek the advice of a lawyer in having it removed.

Tara P

 

[Mell-Dogg]

1) Don’t mention this if you can avoid it. Find out what information will be released by your school and read the questions regarding crime/arrest/disciplinary action carefully.

If I were you, my first step, as mentioned by psychgeek, would be to see if information about disciplinary probation shows up on the transcript that your school sends to other institutions. A friend of mine had a related concern a couple years back and my school (also an R-1 research institution) and it turned out that that information, though on her record with the school, was not mentioned on the official transcript sent out for her grad school applications. It may be different at your institution, but definitely check it out at you transcripts office before you do anything else about the incident.

I hope it all works out! That would really be crap if this came back to haunt you. It's not like you were operating an automobile while you were trashed or anything of that sort.

Best wishes!

Mel