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I have a couple of distant minor alcohol offenses, so the C&F section of my apps is a cause of anxiety.

I was surprised to that it's optional on Vandy's app.

I don't know whether I should disclose or not, I am leaning towards yes... any advice?


EDIT: Optional becomes required if you answer yes to another question.

gavinstevens wrote:I have a couple of distant minor alcohol offenses, so the C&F section of my apps is a cause of anxiety.

I was surprised to that it's optional on Vandy's app.

I don't know whether I should disclose or not, I am leaning towards yes... any advice?

They won't impact your application, and since you probably disclosed on other applications you might as well disclose here as well, seems safer

Tell the truth, if disclosed no one will care about minor offenses, particularly if they happened a long time ago. Fail to disclose and have someone find out about it, and you are in deep shit. Also, keep in mind that you don't disclose it might come back to haunt you on the bar, in which case you would have spent 3 years of your life and a boat load of cash on a degree that might be worthless to you cause you cannot get a license.

Sounds like sound advice, thanks.

why the hell would you disclose if it's optional. it's not safer. 3 years of time and money gone?? nope.

laxbrah420 wrote:why the hell would you disclose if it's optional. it's not safer. 3 years of time and money gone?? nope.

See, there's this little thing called the Character and Fitness part of the bar exam. Lets say OP applies to Vanderbilt, fails to disclose, and attends. They see he did not disclose anything on the character and fitness section of vanderbilt, even though it was optional. They do a little digging, find out about the alcohol misdemeanors. Does it mean he will fail the Character and Fitness Section? Maybe, probably not, but after spending 3 years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, I wouldn't advise anyone to take the slimmest risk.

However, lets say he does disclose. Will Vanderbilt care? Not at all. They would rather someone be open and honest rather than the slightest deception. People have passed the bar with much worse things to their name, but they had disclosed it all before. Its about being honest, which contrary to all those lawyer jokes, is critical to the profession

Skipping an optional section has nothing to do with honesty.

laxbrah420 wrote:Skipping an optional section has nothing to do with honesty.

But not volunteering information that most people are aware plays into both the admissions process and the C&F decision does.

Like others have said, the OP might be fine without disclosing. However, there's no reason to withhold the information, and it could trip him up down the line.

Pretend the C&F portion of the bar is your girlfriend/boyfriend. If you cheat on them, and they don't specifically ask you about it, you're still lying if you don't tell them. A sloppy analogy, but it gets the point across.

There are other optional sections. For instance, ethnicity. Is withholding information on those also like cheating on your girlfriend, or did you just apply some strange set of morality to the section that asks about your background?

laxbrah420 wrote:There are other optional sections. For instance, ethnicity. Is withholding information on those also like cheating on your girlfriend, or did you just apply some strange set of morality to the section that asks about your background?

Holding back optional demographic information doesn't call into question your character, as the law schools won't use that information to bar you from admission, and the bar won't bar you from admission based on it. Holding back information on past criminal activity does call into question your character, because the schools do use that information to consider whether to admit you and the bar does consider that information during the application process.

I'm applying a 'strange' set of morality to the section that's asking about your character and fitness to practice law. Some would say 'morality' is synonymous with that idea.

Oh, so you suggest declaring anything that may potentially bar you from admission on your application
"Dear Vanderbilt, I know you didn't ask, but I want to let you know that I can't do long division and I my ability to analogize is limited to weak appeals to emotion".

Or maybe you think they made the section optional by accident?
Or maybe it's like a special test?!