Looking for black sheep

This article from The Philadelphia Inquirer states many universities are becoming more selective in their admissions process. Where does K-State stand on this issue?
From the story:


Along with SAT scores and extra-curricular activities, college-bound students increasingly are being asked to divulge information that may not be so flattering: their arrest and discipline records.
Since late summer, the Common Application, a form used by about 300 institutions, has asked students and guidance counselors whether the applicant has ever been convicted of a crime or disciplined at school.
Kids with rocky pasts may not make it beyond 12th grade.
In an effort to weed out troublemakers before they hit campus, colleges with their own forms also are requiring prospective students to disclose behavioral black marks. More, including Temple, Rowan and Rutgers Universities, are contemplating it.
The University of Pennsylvania put its admissions policy under review after the discovery in January that a 25-year-old child molester taking graduate courses was commuting from his Bucks County prison cell. Saint Joseph's University will ask about applicants' misdeeds beginning next year.
"It's an issue that's exploding," said Timothy Mann, dean of student affairs at Babson College, who is writing his doctoral dissertation on the subject.
The debate over whether to screen and for what is contentious. Opponents cite privacy issues and the risk of penalizing offenders twice. Education encourages rehabilitation, argues the United States Student Association, the nation's largest student group.
"Are we now putting institutions of higher education in the position of dispensing post-judicial punishment?" Barmak Nassirian of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers asked.
Offenders can still slip in. "No background check is foolproof," cautioned Stephanie Hughes, a professor at the University of Northern Kentucky and security expert who owns RiskAware, which runs background checks on college employees.
Federal law prevents most schools from releasing educational records - including disciplinary information - without a parental OK. Counselors can leave the questions blank, a spokesman for the Common Application said. And schools don't always know about the trouble students get into off campus.
Where Mark McGrath, president of the New Jersey School Counselor Association, works, the few kids who have had an incident tend to admit their wrongdoings.
"We try to put it in the best light we can" on the application, said McGrath, a counselor at Lawrence High School in Lawrenceville, N.J. "We're the advocates for the child."
Access to more accurate information and increased expectations about college involvement in students' lives have spurred the trend toward preadmission screening, Mann said.
Though campus crime has not appreciably increased since 2003, according to the U.S. Department of Education, a few high-profile crimes committed by students with rap sheets have led institutions to reexamine their admissions process. The Common Application added its inquiries at the request of schools concerned about liability, executive director Rob Killion said.
Students are warned not to omit information. If they're caught lying, they're disqualified. Administrators believe most comply.
A single after-school detention or graffiti incident isn't what schools look for, anyway.
"We have 9,000 applications and there are eight counselors," said Matt Middleton, assistant director of admissions at the College of New Jersey in Ewing, where students are asked about suspensions and criminal convictions. (No one has copped to the latter.) "We're lucky if we can get more than five to 10 minutes with an application."
A "history of serious misbehavior" is what Villanova University looks for, said Stephen R. Merritt, dean of enrollment.
Several states have taken stricter measures. A new law criticized by privacy advocates forces Virginia colleges to reveal names and birth dates of incoming students so police can cross-check sex-offender lists. If there's a match, the school and local police are told and the offender has three days to register with authorities after moving to campus.
Virginia State Police Lt. Tom Turner said authorities expect to check 80,000 to 100,000 names annually.
In North Carolina, additional precautions have been implemented since students with rape and larceny convictions committed two unrelated murders at the state university in Wilmington in 2004.
In addition to being asked about their pasts, applicants to the University of North Carolina's 16 campuses are checked against a national database of suspended or expelled college students. Those who trigger suspicion are investigated, Leslie Winner, general counsel for the 200,000-student system, said. As a result, 84 applicants were denied entry last fall.
Schools generally ask for a letter of explanation and consult counselors and others when a problem is reported. Though juvenile records are sealed, colleges can run criminal background checks on those 18 or older.
"There's really no need for a university to take a risk," said Joan McDonald, vice president of enrollment at Drexel University, where no more than 10 applicants a year report misdeeds. Serious offenders aren't invited to join the school's 5,000 or so incoming freshmen.
Each school has its idea of a deal-breaking offense, Hughes, the owner of RiskAware, said. Even with murder, she advises not to jump to conclusions.
"What if they were defending themselves?" Hughes said.
"We look at it on a case-by-case basis," said Mark Lapreziosa, associate vice president of enrollment at Arcadia University, which uses the Common Application and which may revise its own form.
"We look for students showing growth or having learned" from their mistakes, he said.
So far only two students have disclosed arrests, one for drugs and the other theft. They never completed their applications, but options Arcadia considered were requiring them to live off-campus and to keep in close contact with administrators.
"If it was a crime of violence we would have to think seriously," Lapreziosa said.
Pennsylvania State University, which has asked students about their criminal pasts since 1991, received an application in 1999 from a man in his 30s who noted an assault conviction. That confession and information the school received from another source prompted an investigation that revealed more time served for manslaughter and sex crimes.
The man was arrested again - on a gun charge - while the background check was underway.
Even in less dramatic cases, the guidelines are obvious: You can't put the campus at risk, said Joe Puzycki, the school's senior director of judicial affairs. Penn State could not say how many students a year it rejects for security reasons.
Witold Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, worries that risk aversion may lead to overzealous enforcement. If getting arrested once was a consideration 35 years ago, he says, "an awful lot of people would never have gotten into college . . . maybe even presidents."
Last year, Justin Layshock got a 10-day suspension from his Hermitage, N.J., high school for creating an online parody of the principal. When he told Penn State, his application was put on hold, said Walczak, who is representing Layshock in a suit against his old school district.
Layshock let his application lapse after getting into a school where he applied pre-prank. With less luck, he could have lost out entirely, Walczak said.
Connie Clery would rather err on the side of caution. She founded Security on Campus after her 19-year-old daughter, Jeanne, was killed by a fellow student during a robbery at Lehigh University in 1986. The Jeanne Clery Act requires all colleges to disclose crime on and around their campuses.
"You never know who's going to be in the room next to you," said Clery, of Bryn Mawr, who has lobbied for background checks for everyone from faculty to students. "This is a violent culture and it extends onto all college campuses."
Something as benign as theft, the No. 1 campus crime, Clery said, can lead to violence, as it did in her daughter's case.
"If you lose one child, there's nothing in the world that can compensate for that and no way you can get over it if you're a parent," she said. "Why risk it?"
The Common App Rap Sheet
The Common Application, accepted at the following local colleges, requires students to detail all criminal convictions and serious school disciplinary actions.
Arcadia University
Bryn Mawr College
The College of New Jersey
Drexel University
Haverford College
Juniata College
Lafayette College
La Salle University
Lehigh University
University of Pennsylvania
Saint Joseph's University
Swarthmore College
Ursinus College
Villanova University
Source: www.commonapp.org