Tifoso wrote:
Thanks, everyone for the good advice, and for the funny comments like "you would increase the diversity at Yale"! I sure would, huh!
Does anyone think it matters that I don't actually intend on becoming a practicing attorney, if I can help it. I really intend on going into academia, whether legal or otherwise.
If anyone is interested, here is my addendum.
BTW I'm 23 and a half now!
As I mentioned in my personal statement, when I was in my early teens, I was homeless. I left my mother’s home because it was a severely dysfunctional and abusive environment. I lived on the rooftop of an apartment building. While I often found work cleaning people’s cars and houses in the neighborhood or running errands, when I couldn’t I resorted to stealing food to eat and clothing to wear. I also stole some construction supplies that I used to build a small lean-to to sleep under. I know that these actions were wrong, but I feel that I did them out of necessity. One day I stole some food from a shopping center, where a security officer saw me. I ran into a subway station and jumped onto the back of a moving train to escape. I was caught by a police officer at the next stop. I spent a summer youth detention facility because my mother was the only person I was allowed to call, and she refused to pay my bail, which I believe was $50 or $100.
As a 17 year old, I was robbed for a necklace I was wearing, at the front door of my high school. I called the police and gave them the details about my assailant. I did not know this person, but I saw him greeting a classmate of mine, who was heavily into gang and drug-dealing activity. I also called my friend, who came to the school to meet me and offer his support.
Of course, I was not arrested, but later was summoned to court and charged with selling marijuana and possession of a firearm without a license, due to evidence the police found near the school, viz. a pistol and several small bags of marijuana hidden under a fallen tree. These items were the belongings of my friend, who was at the time also involved in gang activity. He had hidden them there when he saw the police at the front door of the school. But since the officers knew that I had been in the area where the items were found, they assumed those items were mine.
The charges were dropped because the amount of marijuana was very small, and the pistol was not, as the ballistics specialist in the police department quickly found, a real firearm. But the officers still thought the items found were mine.
The classmate who I had seen greeting the person who robbed me threatened my life when I returned to school, so I was forced to leave the school in fear of being killed by him or his gang, who were known for numerous murders and violence. Luckily, I could avoid him.
But my “friend” was a different case. He knew where I lived. He put me under duress by threatening my life and the safety of my family. I thus took responsibility for possessing the marijuana that was his.
When I was a freshman in college, my girlfriend called me and claimed she had been violently assaulted by a police officer. When I came to pick her up, the officer was standing in close proximity to her. I asked him if he had touched her. He told me to leave the area. I persisted in asking him again, a bad decision on my part. In response, he threw me to the ground and beat me. While I was on the ground, I spat on the officer’s face. I was put under arrest and was charged with assault and battery on a police officer. The charges were continued without a finding.
I have never smoked marijuana, or used any illegal drugs in my life, nor even smoked a single cigarette. But this explanation does not amount to an excuse. I accept responsibility for my actions, which include placing myself in a situation where I was associated with a gang member, and confronting a police officer. Despite living in the inner city, much better and more careful choices were still available to me. I have learned from these experiences, and have since gone on to live an extremely careful life.
Because my high school education was constantly interrupted and ultimately negated, I had to work much harder than I otherwise would have. To gain employment and perform a job that required significant knowledge of general biology and immunology I had to spend long hours educating myself at the public library. And to complete my college education with excellence in half the normal time, two years, while writing two separate honors theses, I had to study constantly, not only in the subjects I was taking, but also in those that I needed to catch up in. I have gone on to succeed in graduate school in philosophy at (XY Ivy University) and in a class at (T6 Ivy) Law School where my classmates have formal legal training that I lack. I think that my mistakes have thus given me a work ethic that is much stronger that it otherwise would be.
Becoming an academic is extremely difficult. Moreover, you still need to get licensed. Read my post above and please listen to my advice. I'd hate to see you make a huge mistake.
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2009 5:37 pm 
