Teenager has university place withdrawn due to spent conviction

[melpomene]

Story here

I feel sorry for him. He must have been 15 or 16 when he committed the offence and it sounds as if it was an insolated offence and he got himself back on track.

nah, that doesn't seem fair tbh.

Message withdrawn

"It really does depend on the nature of the offence"

That statement would suggest that there may be more t this than we know perhaps.

No, I don't think it does - I think it suggests that medical schools are very conservative establishments & none of them will stick their necks out.

tbh i think that it makes so little sense, WW, that it makes more sense for there to be something that we don't know, iykwim?

But he's obviously a smart lad - would he really have made this huge fuss if there was something to hide?

weird that he's not FURIOUS at UCAS, isn't it? if he presented himself to the meeting in the same way as he obviously presented himself to the guardian journo, i can't see how he could have screwed up teh interview.

and weird of them to stick their necks out to knock him back, risking this shitstorm.

Not that smart or else he would have know that he would be CRB checked if offered a place.

From the surprisingly sympathetic piece in the Mail.

And a v good point from one of the comments on that piece:

(Imperial recruits a lot of overseas students I think?)

And (finally, honest ) I just found this on Imperial's website (from a newsletter from March 2004):

[speechless]

I haven't read all of this thread, but it probably is better for the lad if he doesn't do the medicine degree, because he is going to be seriously disappointed later on. I know of someone who was accepted onto a PGCE course, but had a spent conviction 20 years old.

She has finished her course and successfully completed teaching practise, etc. However, she hasn't managed to secure one interview for a teaching job, whilst her peers have all got jobs. She is having to list her spent conviction on the application form. I think that the university she applied to initially should have pointed out what difficulties she would face in getting a job.

The boy in the article would have real difficulty in getting a job so he may as well cut his losses and do a degree that he can get employed with.

that's interesting, figroll, and how awful for your friend.
re the mail piece etc, ww, it does seem sufficiently perverse for me to think that there is more to it, tbh. and why is he not pissed off at UCAS, from what Hulababy says they're the villains.

Can't see anything wrong with this boy being accepted into medical school. Coming from his background, I think it's fecking unbelievable he managed to turn his life around and get such good grades. I think his experiences would give him excellent insight, a lot more than your average private school Kid getting into medical school.
I am an NHS consultant and would be more than happy to have him as my student.
In fact I think I might just approach the admissions board....

Good for you, Sylar.

Unbelievable about the wife-poisoner though. Blimey. Rather extreme.

The BMA used to have an ethics spokesman who had been an alcoholic and I think suspended from practice - he reformed and that experience was no doubt useful in his role.

Aitch, I'm interested in your perspective that there is "villainy" at play here.

In what way is it villainous? I don't understand. You have say 20 straight A 18 year olds for 10 places. They are all much of a muchness. One of them has a spent criminal conviction. Wouldn't his application automatically go into the bin? It would if I were selecting, I'm afraid. Why would you rank him above the others who have NOT got criminal convictions?

just out of interest as i have very little knowledge of the subject. is the kid essentially playing on a level playing field?
what i mean is, is this standard practice that when there are so many people with good grades applying for these positions that such a thing will be taken into consideration?
because surely if there is and this kid is essentially "let off" and given the place he was offered before his conviction came to light, then isn't he taking the place of someone who has no convictions and has "played by the rules" as it were and met the admission requirments?

once again i'm coming from a position of ignorance and am only asking to gain a more rounded knowledge of this case.

nope, you've got me completely wrong, quattro. my point is pretty much the same as yours, in fact. he was ill-advised by UCAS not to be upfront, imo. best to be totally, utterly honest in these sorts of things i find.

when he told them about his spent conviction, they had him in for an interview. if he presented himself the way he has done in news interviews, i'm surprised he wasn't able to turn the situation around. he's from a poor background, asian, northern, clever, turned life around etc, that's the sort of student that unis need to prove inclusion.

the fact that he still wasn't accepted makes me think that something else, something that the uni isn't commenting on, is at play. who knows?

I feel really sorry for this boy. He is trying to improve his life.

If anything, he could be a wonderful role model for other young people involved in gangs, in that it is possible to have a good life and live your dream if you work at it.

It really doesn't seem fair. Who hasn't made a mistake in their lives? We all have. Yes, this was a huge mistake, but he regrets it.

i have never made a mistake in my life like that. never. being in someone's house? even his story is unconvincing, tbh. he was 'tricked'? riiiight.

I agree with that, Aitch. I was taught that venturing into other people's houses was against the law, so best not to do it really!

Aitch, I've never made a mistake as big as that either, but then I was fortunate enough to grow up in a good environment with good parents. This boy didn't have that good fortune.
And why don't you believe his story? It is possible to be young, naive and be tricked into something you know.

i don't believe it because WHEN THE UNI INTERVIEWED HIM they didn't let him in. it's absolutely perverse not to, unless they decided that something else was going on.

and honestly, fuck this 'didn't you do anything stupid when you were young' argument. did you all get tricked into house burglary when you were teens? really?

Totally agree with TinySocks

how do you know it was UCAS which wrongly advised him? it was more likely his school/college/head of sixth form.

Clearly the university did not like him - they rejected him after the interview, not upon discovering the spent conviction. Sounds fair enough to me. I don't understand why so many people are foaming at the mouth about this. Some people pass the interview stage - some don't. Get over it.

says so in the news story donnie, they told him spent convictions didn't have to be mentioned. it was a friend or someone told him that it wasn't the same for medics and that he'd been ill-advised.

as it happens, i know someoen who didn't get into medical school after having been offered a place due to his grades (which is, after all, what happened to this boy).

he's hugely privileged and a bit of an arse, and i think would make a rotten doctor because he doesn't have a clue. and the uni interviewers thought so too. he's cross because he has the best grades in his year, but it's not all about that.

same with this lad, i think, it can't all be about the spent conviction.