Ex-Felon Gains Double-Ivy Status
In the annals of the Ivy League there are countless tales of bright men and women who went astray. There was Harvard MBA graduate Jeffrey Skilling, who helped bring the Enron Corporation down to its knees. And then there was former Penn Professor Rafael Robb, who bludgeoned his wife to death in 2006.
So every once in awhile it's refreshing to hear about reversals of fortune that cut the opposite way. Meet one-time drug dealer Andres Idarraga. At the age of twenty Idarraga was given a felony and a 14-year prison sentence. Ostensibly because jail sucked and there was little to do, Idarraga
began reading books — voraciously. As he read, he began to dream, not about pimped-up cars and drug money, but about going to college, about doing something that he and his parents could be proud of.
After attaining his GED and receiving an early parole, Idarraga - whose parents emigrated to Rhode Island from Colombia - applied to Brown. He was rejected, so he excelled at another school, reapplied a year later, and got in. Now thirty, Idarraga is currently a 1L at Yale Law.
The question now is where's Idarraga's Lifetime movie deal?
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September 15th, 2008 at 11:40 pm
if i remember correctly from the couple of interviews they had with him in the BDH last year, he’s involved with ending the disenfranchisement of ex-convicts, one of the more awful laws that a lot of states have on the books right now. cool stuff
September 16th, 2008 at 12:28 am
and yale in contrast admitted a taliban member. the harvard-yale game really is as close to a battle of good vs. evil as you’ll find.
September 16th, 2008 at 9:33 am
@harvard 05: yale in contrast to what? Yale admitted this guy, too. Harvard’s not even mentioned in this story. Reading comprehension ftw.
September 18th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Andres is an amazing guy – I *never* would have guessed this about him, but it doesn’t make me think badly of him in any way. What an inspiring tale!