Hello! I will be applying for my PhD in the US this coming year. I am at a top ranked UK institution and have received excellent grades. My supervisor (who has worked with student who got into grad school in the US) has said he thinks I am likely to get into a few very good grad schools. However my concern is when I was under 18 I got arrested a few times (pretty much all for simple battery, common assault and criminal damage). As such I have 2 convictions for those offences. I also got a youth caution for computer hacking, and was charged with a very serious assault (this was dropped as it was clear cut self defence).
Since then I have not committed any further offences, and I have become a model citizen. I am now 22 years old for reference. Since my arrests/convictions were as a juvenile, and I was adjudicated as a juvenile, I see that I am not inadmissible. However I worry that I'll be denied a visa anyway (I've read that sometimes consular officers forget the specific laws and don't apply juvenile exception cases etc.), or simply due to discretion.
How can I answer the question about criminal records on the DS-160 to prevent this from happening? Is it a terrible idea to say something vague like 'I have been in trouble with law enforcement, only as a juvenile. I note that this does not create an ineligibility as per section ..... I was convicted of non CIMT offences in youth court, and was arrested for 2 other offences. In one I was acquitted, and the other was a youth caution. Due to the adjudication as a juvenile and that the case was not heard in adult court, as mentioned earlier this is not an admissibility concern'?
I dont want to come across as a jerk though and as though I know the law better than them... I just want to maximise my chances of them seeing I'm not inadmissible, because on paper it looks bad. I don't have an immigration lawyer - I am in the UK and there aren't many, and the ones that there are are ridiculously expensive.
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/py06f4/f1_visa_with_substantial_juvenile_record/