Lying on your application?

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I have a friend I personally know very well who recently posted in the 'what are my chances?' thread.

I was surprised to find out how much he exaggerated on his extracurricular activities...some examples:
Volunteering for 40 hours suddenly turned into 350 hours.
A part-time job of 16 hours turned into 24 hours.
Helping a friend with movie projects turns into a part-time actor in 8 movies
Helping his sister with homework turned into 'tutoring and mentoring high school students'
One semester of research turns into a year of research.

His stats are quite average, but are you serious?
How many people lie on their extracurricular or make up personal statement stuff?
What's the point of doing any ECs if we can all fabricate or exaggerate them?
What's to keep anyone from lying on everything?

I often browse the what are my chances thread and mdapplicants to get a good feel of what med schools are looking for, but at this point..who knows of anything anymore! Does this mean my entire perception of what it takes to get into medical school completely skewed? Are we all approaching this the wrong way?

Originally Posted by CaliGirl14

I have a friend I personally know very well who recently posted in the 'what are my chances?' thread.

I was surprised to find out how much he exaggerated on his extracurricular activities...some examples:
Volunteering for 40 hours suddenly turned into 350 hours.
A part-time job of 16 hours turned into 24 hours.
Helping a friend with movie projects turns into a part-time actor in 8 movies
Helping his sister with homework turned into 'tutoring and mentoring high school students'
One semester of research turns into a year of research.

His stats are quite average, but are you serious?
How many people lie on their extracurricular or make up personal statement stuff?
What's the point of doing any ECs if we can all fabricate or exaggerate them?
What's to keep anyone from lying on everything?

I often browse the what are my chances thread and mdapplicants to get a good feel of what med schools are looking for, but at this point..who knows of anything anymore! Does this mean my entire perception of what it takes to get into medical school completely skewed? Are we all approaching this the wrong way?

That being said, I am pretty sure most people exaggerate things on their application. After browsing SDN for awhile it becomes apparent that some people have to be lying. There's no way around it.

But 40 hours to 350 hours is insane. If this person actually wanted to be a doctor then I really hope they shadow some people and gain experience in the medical field. It sounds like they're not even interested at all. Most clinical volunteering places are asked to sign off on your hours and while those hours may be exaggerated, she better hope she has someone who is willing to sign off on her exaggerations.

Some people lie, it is inevitable. But like anything else, their actions can have serious consequences if they get caught. Is it worth it? Not to me atleast.

Originally Posted by CaliGirl14

I have a friend I personally know very well who recently posted in the 'what are my chances?' thread.

I was surprised to find out how much he exaggerated on his extracurricular activities...some examples:
Volunteering for 40 hours suddenly turned into 350 hours.
A part-time job of 16 hours turned into 24 hours.
Helping a friend with movie projects turns into a part-time actor in 8 movies
Helping his sister with homework turned into 'tutoring and mentoring high school students'
One semester of research turns into a year of research.

His stats are quite average, but are you serious?
How many people lie on their extracurricular or make up personal statement stuff?
What's the point of doing any ECs if we can all fabricate or exaggerate them?
What's to keep anyone from lying on everything?

I often browse the what are my chances thread and mdapplicants to get a good feel of what med schools are looking for, but at this point..who knows of anything anymore! Does this mean my entire perception of what it takes to get into medical school completely skewed? Are we all approaching this the wrong way?

Well, yeah, there are probably a ton of people who lie on their applications, and yes, it skews your, and Adcom's, expectations. I decided to ignore MDapps for determining my chances when the stats of the applicants to schools were significantly higher for the MDapps data than the schools' own published data. Partly self-selection, but I am sure exaggeration/lying played a part as well.

That said, the things people say on here one should have are a very good target, since they will maximize your competitiveness. If you want a realistic feel for what your actual chances are and what schools are actually looking for, I would stick to the official data published by schools and AMCAS.

Did you link this thread to his/her "what are my chances" thread?

There's really no way to know who is telling the truth. A small plus of AMCAS is that it requires a contact person for each activity, and if an activity seems fishy enough, schools can contact that person and verify the information. While schools usually won't spend time calling contacts for run-of-the-mill ECs like volunteering, your friend is definitely still running the risk of getting caught for lying.

I'd like to think that the people who overexaggerate on their apps are a small % of the entire applicant pool, but then again, there's no way to know. Don't worry about the people who lie or exaggerate their ECs, because you're going to find people who do that in all jobs and professions. You're going about it the right way, and you'll be able to go to medical school with a clean conscience.

Don't put it past the adcom to look at imdb.com for a list of your friend's roles. Some adcom members add up the hours/wk and if it seems outragious, they ditch the application. Remember, at each layer of review we are dumpting between 33-67% of the applicants. It doesnt' take much to go in the discard pile and being "too good to be true" can be one of those things.

Originally Posted by LizzyM

Don't put it past the adcom to look at imdb.com for a list of your friend's roles. Some adcom members add up the hours/wk and if it seems outragious, they ditch the application. Remember, at each layer of review we are dumpting between 33-67% of the applicants. It doesnt' take much to go in the discard pile and being "too good to be true" can be one of those things.

sucks for the "too good to be true but are" category. I like to think i'm in that category, at least that's what i tell myself after 22 rejections... sigh

Originally Posted by alerk323

sucks for the "too good to be true but are" category. I like to think i'm in that category, at least that's what i tell myself after 22 rejections... sigh

Lol, if I get all rejections I'm just going to say it was because they couldn't believe how awesome I am. Will help me cope.

If you are that great, you should have a "walks on water" LOR.

Originally Posted by theseeker4

Well, yeah, there are probably a ton of people who lie on their applications, and yes, it skews your, and Adcom's, expectations. I decided to ignore MDapps for determining my chances when the stats of the applicants to schools were significantly higher for the MDapps data than the schools' own published data. Partly self-selection, but I am sure exaggeration/lying played a part as well.

MDApps is full of ****. I've met so many pre-med kids in my life, both as an undergraduate and a graduate student, and I have never heard of anyone scoring above a 34. And yet, every other person on MDApps is applying with a 34+ with crazy ECs.

Like everything in life, take with a grain of salt.

Originally Posted by notbobtrustme

MDApps is full of ****. I've met so many pre-med kids in my life, both as an undergraduate and a graduate student, and I have never heard of anyone scoring above a 34. And yet, every other person on MDApps is applying with a 34+ with crazy ECs.

Like everything in life, take with a grain of salt.

I think a lot of the internet stats are exagerated in some twisted attempt at intimidating the rest of us into not applying. A long shot strategy if I've ever heard one.

And if people lie on the AMCAS they have to live with it, not me. They are taking a HUGE risk for probably not much reward. They can't lie about their GPA or MCAT and any real research could be easily verified. I don't think their lies will really make any positive difference for them while the potential negative impact is much higher.

TL;DR = lying on the AMCAS = risk > reward

Originally Posted by notbobtrustme

MDApps is full of ****. I've met so many pre-med kids in my life, both as an undergraduate and a graduate student, and I have never heard of anyone scoring above a 34. And yet, every other person on MDApps is applying with a 34+ with crazy ECs.

Like everything in life, take with a grain of salt.

heavy selection bias with these things.

1) the person is motivated enough to search the internet for med school stuff
2) the person is motivated enough to be interested in something as boring as applicant stats
3) the person is motivated enough to make an account
4) the person is motivated enough to plug in their data to make a profile

All that motivation, more times than not, will result in a score above average (i.e. they will put forth the effort), IMO.... the average scorer has average motivation. the average scorer (the people you and I know IRL) don't think about "joining a social network site based on comparing and contrasting gpa and mcat score and med school application cycles with others".

by this level (joining SDN/mdapps) people have been filtered down to a certain demographic in regards to interests/motivation.

It surprises you that a group of highly ambitious people might lie? I wouldn't be surprised if more than 2 out of every 5 applicants lies/exaggerates on the app.

Originally Posted by LizzyM

Don't put it past the adcom to look at imdb.com for a list of your friend's roles. Some adcom members add up the hours/wk and if it seems outragious, they ditch the application. Remember, at each layer of review we are dumpting between 33-67% of the applicants. It doesnt' take much to go in the discard pile and being "too good to be true" can be one of those things.

That kind of sucks, because I volunteered at a hospital from 07/10 to 03/11, for 182 hours.

Originally Posted by pfaction

That kind of sucks, because I volunteered at a hospital from 07/10 to 03/11, for 182 hours.

182 hours per week, I call bull__t.

If it is 182 hours over 9 months which equals ~36 weeks then it is about 5 hr/wk for 9 mos which is admirable and not unbelievable.

Originally Posted by Judas

this would also explain why there are some very weak applicants here, too. if you are an amazing pre-med you search for med school stuff online. if you are a very weak applicant you also search for med school stuff online. i have noticed a lot of 3.9/35 and 3.2/25 people but not many 3.6/30 people.

I agree. our population is largely bi-modal, IMO.

Originally Posted by LizzyM

182 hours per week, I call bull__t.

If it is 182 hours over 9 months which equals ~36 weeks then it is about 5 hr/wk for 9 mos which is admirable and not unbelievable.

Oh.

I thought that was unbelieveable, since people here have like 100 hours over 3 years and stuff.

Carry on with the topic then!

Blame the admissions committees. There's absolutely no reason why we should need to do community service or volunteering to prove that we can be doctors. Pre-meds realize this, and fake the hours.

wadabout 200 hours in 5 weeks? Actually legitimate question, it was a 5 week abroad volunteering experience. 5, 8 hour shifts a week for 5 weeks. Do I need something to make that seem more believable other than just stating it?

Originally Posted by Judas

??? some pre-meds i know volunteer 10-15 hours a week. over a year this is over 500-750 hours of volunteer work; by the time they're juniors, they're at about 1500-2250. that's not including summers when they can ramp up the hours.

Oh. Like I said, I thought 5 hrs/week towards one organization wouldn't be very believeable, so that's why I was like 'what a shame'.

Blame the admissions committees. There's absolutely no reason why we should need to do community service or volunteering to prove that we can be doctors. Pre-meds realize this, and fake the hours.

Agreed, but from their perspective, it's probably a great way to see how we can manage our time.

Originally Posted by alerk323

wadabout 200 hours in 5 weeks? Actually legitimate question, it was a 5 week abroad volunteering experience. 5, 8 hour shifts a week for 5 weeks. Do I need something to make that seem more believable other than just stating it?

That's probably better off being labelled as a discrete experience of 5 weeks rather than chopping it up into individual hours.

I look at it this way: the people on adcoms are smart people, and know that people exaggerate. In the "what are my chances" forum, I take many of the posts with a grain of salt. For the most part, the questions are along the lines of GPA, MCAT, and ECs. The standards for those are straightforward (for the most part), and LizzyM took a lot of the mystery out of the first two.

With ECs, it seems like most of the people with stellar non-academic activities don't need to post and ask about it (the big exception tends to be non-academic/medical jobs). If you've got your name on 8 peer reviewed publications, do you really need to post here and ask if that's a good thing?

Anyhoo, I think lying is a terrible idea, and wouldn't do it myself. Mostly because I've had the experience of lying/being lied to, and found that it nearly always ends badly. Note: it's a bad idea to claim that you made the middle school cheerleading team to avoid the embarrassment of having to admit that you failed miserably. My cheeks still get pink when I think about it. That said, I'm glad I learned that lesson in life early on, and in a situation that wasn't a big deal, and has turned out to be a great long-running joke with old friends. I wouldn't want to learn it in marriage/a serious relationship, with money, job/school applications, or anything like that.

After that experience, I tend to swing hard in the other direction, and lean towards being rigorously truthful. My litmus test for applications is this: could I get an affidavit signed by God and witnessed by the Pope stating that I did *exactly* as I claimed? If not, I either revise the information to be completely truthful, or remove it altogether.

The lines between truth, embellishment, completely exaggerated, misleading, falsification, and blatantly lying can be difficult to discern. So I play it safe and stick with the 100% documented/verifiable truth. It's the way to go. Honest.

Originally Posted by QuizzicalApe

That's probably better off being labelled as a discrete experience of 5 weeks rather than chopping it up into individual hours.

Thing is I don't have the control over how its labeled, on the primary you're supposed to list date range plus hours per week. I could talk about it in the description part as a "5 week experience" i guess.

Originally Posted by alerk323

wadabout 200 hours in 5 weeks? Actually legitimate question, it was a 5 week abroad volunteering experience. 5, 8 hour shifts a week for 5 weeks. Do I need something to make that seem more believable other than just stating it?

Obviously, you were somewhere for a solid period of time and you aren't listing concurrent membership in intramural floor hockey, organizing weekly movie night, 25 hrs/wk of research and 15 hr/wk of tutoring and 6 hours/wk of band practice. Starting one month and ending the following month and writing 40 hours/week doesn't seem at all outrageous. The question would be what did you do when you weren't on duty and that is a nice topic of conversation for the interview.

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=878421

Is that your boy?

lamesies! Don't lie.... Nothing irked me more than that one guy from cannada who failed out of UG, came back to school -- did ok.... and was going to pretend like the first attempt didn't happen.

please take the link off.

Oh snaps, he just got caught. Looking through the app, he seems to be all over the place and if he cannot talk intelligently about all these things in the interviews, he is screwed.

On topic, I used to know a girl who is currently a dental student. Her and two of her friends used to rotate for volunteering and clock each other in. Magically 100 hours became 300.

Originally Posted by SunsFun

Oh snaps, he just got caught. Looking through the app, he seems to be all over the place and if he cannot talk intelligently about all these things in the interviews, he is screwed.

On topic, I used to know a girl who is currently a dental student. Her and two of her friends used to rotate for volunteering and clock each other in. Magically 100 hours became 300.

well volunteering isn't that big a deal anyways. Its not like they made up a medical mission trip

Originally Posted by CaliGirl14

please take the link off.

your original post has enough details to get recognized by your friend... i think lol

Originally Posted by Holy FranZ

well volunteering isn't that big a deal anyways. Its not like they made up a medical mission trip

Her GPA and DAT were really good and for some reason I have a feeling that she made up much more stuff just because those two were good. I don't know but I get a feeling that person with stellar academics can get away with more lies on their application.

Originally Posted by circulus vitios

Blame the admissions committees. There's absolutely no reason why we should need to do community service or volunteering to prove that we can be doctors. Pre-meds realize this, and fake the hours.

Really? I would blame the applicants for lying.

Your ECs are important. No, you don't need to go crazy, but having some shadowing and patient interaction are actually very useful for med school.

You should also know by now that most applicants don't have these crazy amounts of ECs, so I don't see why people would feel the need to lie.

Yeah, I would say it's the applicant's fault.

Originally Posted by Barcu

Really? I would blame the applicants for lying.

Your ECs are important. No, you don't need to go crazy, but having some shadowing and patient interaction are actually very useful for med school.

You should also know by now that most applicants don't have these crazy amounts of ECs, so I don't see why people would feel the need to lie.

Yeah, I would say it's the applicant's fault.

I'm not sure why admissions committees want to see volunteering. At best, volunteering is just another box to check for 150+ hours. At worst, it's an idiotic waste of time. It's not indicative of a future medical career (shadowing, however, is.) I could think of much better ways to spend my time than volunteering: shadowing or working.

Originally Posted by LizzyM

Obviously, you were somewhere for a solid period of time and you aren't listing concurrent membership in intramural floor hockey, organizing weekly movie night, 25 hrs/wk of research and 15 hr/wk of tutoring and 6 hours/wk of band practice. .

This doesn't seem all that outrageous to me. I spend about 40 hours on research as a grad student (huge +/-). I tutor on the weekends (10 hours) and I'm a volunteer firefighter which usually eats about 25 hours, and I do an EMS shift Friday nights (6 hours). I'm on the board of directors as well, and that generally eats up about 15 hours including the committees I chair. I also spend about 5-10 hours weekly as a web administrator.

Would I really get screened out because I keep myself busy?

Now I gotta run.

This question always comes up during application season and the mob loves to come on here and criticize the liars, the application system, and anything else they possibly can blame.

Someone much smarter than I once told me a couple really intelligent things regarding this question.
- Anything significant enough to sway your application from rejection to acceptance probably cannot be forged. (starting a huge foundation, D1 athlete, long commitment to research, etc.)
- If you lie on you app, you are essentially trying to tell a lie to every and every member in each admissions committee. That can quickly be a LOT of people that you have to convince that your story is legit. If anyone is suspicious and follows through with verifying an EC you didn't do, then you are done. Trying to keep numerous lies a secret from many many people is a lot harder than people realize, especially if your lie has any significance. Also, good luck with interviewers asking you randomly about an experience you never had.
- I'm sure adcoms are really good with the "bs meter" by now.

All those people complaining about "exaggeraters" and "embellishers" should grow up. People will always lie, cheat, steal, etc. in all avenues of life. Med school apps are no different.

Originally Posted by EnergyDrink

This doesn't seem all that outrageous to me. I spend about 40 hours on research as a grad student (huge +/-). I tutor on the weekends (10 hours) and I'm a volunteer firefighter which usually eats about 25 hours, and I do an EMS shift Friday nights (6 hours). I'm on the board of directors as well, and that generally eats up about 15 hours including the committees I chair. I also spend about 5-10 hours weekly as a web administrator.

Would I really get screened out because I keep myself busy?

Now I gotta run.

Do you sleep at the firehouse? Study on your EMS shifts? 90 hours a week seems a big heavy. If it seems plausible, you might get interviewed and asked about it. If it seems phony, then you are screened out. I've seen LORs from volunter coordinators that will spell out the number of hours and the time period (start date) and it becomes obvious that what sounds like 15 hours/wk is really more like 5. Don't be that guy.

Originally Posted by PingPongPro

This question always comes up during application season and the mob loves to come on here and criticize the liars, the application system, and anything else they possibly can blame.

Someone much smarter than I once told me a couple really intelligent things regarding this question.
- Anything significant enough to sway your application from rejection to acceptance probably cannot be forged. (starting a huge foundation, D1 athlete, long commitment to research, etc.)
- If you lie on you app, you are essentially trying to tell a lie to every and every member in each admissions committee. That can quickly be a LOT of people that you have to convince that your story is legit. If anyone is suspicious and follows through with verifying an EC you didn't do, then you are done. Trying to keep numerous lies a secret from many many people is a lot harder than people realize, especially if your lie has any significance. Also, good luck with interviewers asking you randomly about an experience you never had.
- I'm sure adcoms are really good with the "bs meter" by now.

All those people complaining about "exaggeraters" and "embellishers" should grow up. People will always lie, cheat, steal, etc. in all avenues of life. Med school apps are no different.

Sage advice from start to finish.

My personal perspective is that I'm going to be myself, for better or for worse. Adcom people are smart, experienced, and are trying to do right by society when they select the members of a class. So if an adcom doesn't like what they see when they view my application, I take that seriously. It's not a judgement on me as a human being. It's a judgement on whether I have what it takes to be successful in medical school and a good doctor in the future (and whether they think I'll fit into their school culture).

Yes, people will always lie, cheat, stretch the truth, and generally do anything they can to get ahead. It is tempting to think that you need to do it too, in order to level the playing field. For me, I'd rather be rejected for being me than accepted by convincing an adcom that I'm something I'm not. Medical school is long, expensive, and brutal. I think I can cut it, but they have A LOT more experience than I do. If they truly believe I can't handle it or am not suited for the profession, I'd rather save us all a lot of trouble and heartache and find something else to do now.

Originally Posted by LizzyM

Don't put it past the adcom to look at imdb.com for a list of your friend's roles. Some adcom members add up the hours/wk and if it seems outragious, they ditch the application. Remember, at each layer of review we are dumpting between 33-67% of the applicants. It doesnt' take much to go in the discard pile and being "too good to be true" can be one of those things.

omg.

I don't really think Adcoms realistically give a crap how many hours you have beyond a certain level. They just want to see that you're committed to something and that you're in a position to develop yourself and get some kind of exposure and experience.

Originally Posted by Barcu

Really? I would blame the applicants for lying.

Your ECs are important. No, you don't need to go crazy, but having some shadowing and patient interaction are actually very useful for med school.

You should also know by now that most applicants don't have these crazy amounts of ECs, so I don't see why people would feel the need to lie.

Yeah, I would say it's the applicant's fault.

Applicants wouldn't be doing this garbage if it didn't help their chances. Very few of us actually want to ladle soup or change a bed in the ER, but that **** is basically required for an admission to medical school. So people lie, embellish and all that other crap. Look at what happened to research. Word got out about 10 years ago that research was something that adcoms value seeing. Now every pre-med is washing dishes and calling that research so that adcoms won't junk their application.

I have it on good authority that this post is a lie to troll on a certain applicant. A note to the original post writer: it is absolutely not okay to try and jeopardize ANYONE'S application and chances to get into medical school, even of it is your ex-boyfriend and you are bitter and immature. I would advise you to stop harassing this applicant and please refrain from spamming this forum. Also, please do my deny or reply to this post. I know who this is and I will not believe any response attempting to defend this ridiculous act as being true. Thank you for your time and I apologize to everyone who read and believed this post previously.

Originally Posted by Teeba1989

I have it on good authority that this post is a lie to troll on a certain applicant. A note to the original post writer: it is absolutely not okay to try and jeopardize ANYONE'S application and chances to get into medical school, even of it is your ex-boyfriend and you are bitter and immature. I would advise you to stop harassing this applicant and please refrain from spamming this forum. Also, please do my deny or reply to this post. I know who this is and I will not believe any response attempting to defend this ridiculous act as being true. Thank you for your time and I apologize to everyone who read and believed this post previously.

LOL

These are the *SDN pre-med* days of our lives.

Originally Posted by Teeba1989

I have it on good authority that this post is a lie to troll on a certain applicant. A note to the original post writer: it is absolutely not okay to try and jeopardize ANYONE'S application and chances to get into medical school, even of it is your ex-boyfriend and you are bitter and immature. I would advise you to stop harassing this applicant and please refrain from spamming this forum. Also, please do my deny or reply to this post. I know who this is and I will not believe any response attempting to defend this ridiculous act as being true. Thank you for your time and I apologize to everyone who read and believed this post previously.

I had mediocre EC's, but I didn't put down any false information on my application. I just portrayed who I am, and I guess schools believed I am someone who can become a competent doctor since I got 4/5 acceptances post interview (one of my interviewers told me "you'll be a great doctor someday"). So my advice is to be yourself. If you don't get in with that and your past work, it just means you aren't qualified to be a doctor and you'd be better off in some other line of work

The hours section is pointless. I guessed on mine and underestimated. Especially for hours worked in a week, that varied so much. Worked a lot on breaks and summers but that went down during school. There should be a way to seperate that. I have a friend who put down 20 hours a week when he really worked 60+ hours on breaks and summers and picked up the occasional shift while in school. Most school weeks he didn't even have 1 hour but he's right, it averages to 20.

It doesn't really tell the whole story. AMCAS needs better guidelines.

Originally Posted by AYCES

The hours section is pointless. I guessed on mine and underestimated. Especially for hours worked in a week, that varied so much. Worked a lot on breaks and summers but that went down during school. There should be a way to seperate that. I have a friend who put down 20 hours a week when he really worked 60+ hours on breaks and summers and picked up the occasional shift while in school. Most school weeks he didn't even have 1 hour but he's right, it averages to 20.

It doesn't really tell the whole story. AMCAS needs better guidelines.

I doubt people care much at all about the hours you list beyond a low threshold. I don't even look at that when I'm preparing for an interview and looking at an applicant's app. What's more important to me is what you designated as "most meaningful" and how you talk about your experiences (specifically why they're important to you and/or how they speak to your potential as a physician). That will speak for itself with respect your involvement, not the number of hours you list.

I read that in an ANONYMOUS study men lied on average an entire inch high on their... Length. If people will do that with total anonymity they surely will if they feel they can impress us here, even semi-anonymously.

It's probably unlikely that he'll get caught, but if he does you can bet he's done at whatever school catches him.

Originally Posted by LizzyM

Don't put it past the adcom to look at imdb.com for a list of your friend's roles. Some adcom members add up the hours/wk and if it seems outragious, they ditch the application. Remember, at each layer of review we are dumpting between 33-67% of the applicants. It doesnt' take much to go in the discard pile and being "too good to be true" can be one of those things.

My very first shadowing experience was for an entire summer. I didn't know that 10-20 hours with one physician was acceptable and I thought that most students spent summers shadowing so that's what I did... I literally shadowed this guy full-time for the whole summer. He was my mom's Rheumatologist/PCP and he didn't mind having me around all summer. If you saw an app that said they shadowed for a total of about 580 hours (5 physicians total) with about 480 of those hours being with one physician would you think it was BS?

this is the most drama i've seen on a medical forum since greys anatomy