Background Check on College Applicants

Name: Arielle Samms

Professor: Wendy Felese

Subject: GWE

Background Check on College Applicants

As a newly college student not too long ago I was an applicant. The process and preparation leading up the application was hard enough but keeping a clean record should be in the process of preparing. A background check the treated like all the other requirement with out being questioned. There are alternative schools for applicant with a criminal background history.

Colleges do background checks  on applicants for the safety of the school, student and staff. Since many students will live in the campus dorm, colleges will look in particular for any sexual offenses, violent convictions, or arrests due to drugs and alcohol. In other cases the school admission office wouldn’t want to put it’s employees in danger, being a class room with someone that have any serious records could be threatening to the teachers and school which could possible lead to a law suit for emotion distress and endangering your life. Background checks are also done to meet the requirements of affiliation agreements. In most university at some point in the student’s college career they are going to be required to participate in some organization to meet obligation for gradation like an internship, work-study,volunteering for a local organization or sports. In participating in most of those activities will require a back ground check. Base on how severe the students offense is they might be denied the opportunity to participate. Which might potentially lead to not completing their degrees.

Way back in 2006, not long after the University of Oklahoma became one of the country’s first athletic departments to institute formal background checks for prospective student-athletes the school was quotes in the Marquette Sports Law Review.  “It’s due diligence, and we think it helps us create a better profile on the prospective student-athletes (we are) bringing in. We’re not going to catch every single thing … but if we don’t do this, someday someone else is going to walk in to my office and say, ‘Did you know about this? Did you check?’ ” said University of Oklahoma. Since then many other schools have decided to background check these applicant which are potential athletes.

In life everyone makes mistake and sometime these mistakes cause a life long of hardship like a criminal record. Every action have a consequence and in the case of a criminal record the consequence is to have restrictions. In 2016 over a dozen of college sign to admit applicants with a record to further a higher education. Former president Obama signed to a  Fair Chance for Higher Education pledge with university the give applicants with a record a chance. "When people make mistakes, we have to focus on how we give them a meaningful second chance. Think of a student who, as a teenager, may have been convicted of a minor nonviolent drug offense. Now, 20 years later, it doesn't make sense to prevent this student from getting their education.” argued U.S. Secretary of Education John King. As a factors of this the applicants who is admitted will not be able to receive finical aide, government assistance in school, living in dorms as well as participate in curtain activities. There are scholarship out there just for people with record who want to further their education.