Do graduate schools check the disciplinary record of PhD applicants? Do Physics (STEM) graduate schools in the US check for disciplinary record if they don't ask for it in the application? The outcome of the violation doesn't appear on my transcript. Only way a graduate school can find out is if they ask my school (in US) for my academic record. I am not going to lie if they ask but some school's application form doesn't ask for disciplinary records. Does that mean they will not check for it?
Generally speaking, in the US, you can depend to some extent on a &quot;right to privacy&quot; that would make such an inquiry improper and replying to it also improper. But it isn't necessarily assured.
The US Constitution is silent on a right to privacy, but many Supreme Court decisions have expanded that right, though not to the extent of the EU's Right to be Forgotten. Also, many US states will have privacy protections in place that make the communication of certain kinds of information improper without the consent of the person involved.
However, if some transgression of a student is also law-breaking, then the rules may change and the information may be part of the public record in that case.
In addition, most (I think) US colleges and universities would treat disciplinary action against a student as a private matter and some might purge the record upon graduation (or after some time period). Part of the philosophy is that if we are to punish a student for some act then that should be the end of it, though the record might be retained until graduation to guard against recurrences.
Overall, I doubt that, given the more or less general, if informal, sense that privacy is a right, that any graduate school would ask and that the likelihood of getting an answer would be very small.
Part of the reasoning here is that the grad school would have no particular reason to ask, having no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of an applicant.
Of course, it is not outside the realm of possibility that the candidate would be asked directly about certain kinds of misbehavior, and if asked it would be a potential problem if a candidate were to lie (as noted by Anonymous Physicist).