Absite cheating

[mechq]

Advertisement - Members don't see this ad

I know a resident who is applying for fellowship and her only problem is ABSITE scores. She has research years, great publications, great letters etc. She has mentioned that ERAS requires that you send copies of your ABSITE scores. These are not sent by the ABS or the program director to ERAS. She is willing to change the score and send them in, and she will change them to a mid score (50-60%).
I feel awful about knowing this, I have known her for many years during my residency.
First, do you think fellowship programs will verify scores or find out of the cheating?
Second, do you think I should report her? 🙁
Any advice, or info on anyone else whom you know has done it.
Also, why do residency programs and the ABS put us in this position?

Thanks

 

[Dimoak]

I know a resident who is applying for fellowship and her only problem is ABSITE scores. She has research years, great publications, great letters etc. She has mentioned that ERAS requires that you send copies of your ABSITE scores. These are not sent by the ABS or the program director to ERAS. She is willing to change the score and send them in, and she will change them to a mid score (50-60%).
I feel awful about knowing this, I have known her for many years during my residency.
First, do you think fellowship programs will verify scores or find out of the cheating?
Second, do you think I should report her? 🙁
Any advice, or info on anyone else whom you know has done it.
Also, why do residency programs and the ABS put us in this position?

Thanks

Assuming this is not a troll, changing official ABS score is a very serious violation and can result in severe consequences for one's career. You should advise your friend that gaining fellowship (especially in light of other parts of her applications being strong) is not worth taking that risk.

 

[SocialistMD]

Report her to whom?

You need to strongly encourage your colleague to not do this, playing up the fact that (a) she is a great applicant and the board scores probably won't hurt her that much and (b) she does not know the process completely and that if this somehow came back on her, she would be royally screwed. I don't know if programs bother to check with the applicant's program to confirm things like this, but it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibilities, particularly if the fellowship PD has friends at the applicant's home program.

That said, you won't see her application, so you won't know if she did it or not. If you report her and she didn't do it, you will unjustly call into question her integrity and do more harm than good. Even if it checks out that she didn't do it, the fact that someone thought she might will set off alarms.

It's a tough situation; I can only stress that the best thing you can do is encourage her not to alter her scores.

 

[error404]

I know a resident who is applying for fellowship and her only problem is ABSITE scores. She has research years, great publications, great letters etc. She has mentioned that ERAS requires that you send copies of your ABSITE scores. These are not sent by the ABS or the program director to ERAS. She is willing to change the score and send them in, and she will change them to a mid score (50-60%).
I feel awful about knowing this, I have known her for many years during my residency.
First, do you think fellowship programs will verify scores or find out of the cheating?
Second, do you think I should report her? 🙁
Any advice, or info on anyone else whom you know has done it.
Also, why do residency programs and the ABS put us in this position?

1. I'm just a 4th year MS, so maybe I have no right to comment.
2. Cheating and lying like this is wrong. I don't know what her chances are of being caught, but the risk to her career is huge. Like, "leave a program in poor standing, never work again" huge. My limited experience suggests that medicine doesn't take this lightly.
3. If everything else on the application is solid, hopefully people reviewing it can look past one set of bad scores? (Sure, it *will* hurt her chances, but not like getting caught cheating will.)


I don't think the residency programs and the ABS have put anyone in a bad position. Sounds like she's distorting the situation to make it easier on her psyche.

 

[SLUser11]

I know a resident who is applying for fellowship and her only problem is ABSITE scores. She has research years, great publications, great letters etc. She has mentioned that ERAS requires that you send copies of your ABSITE scores. These are not sent by the ABS or the program director to ERAS. She is willing to change the score and send them in, and she will change them to a mid score (50-60%).
I feel awful about knowing this, I have known her for many years during my residency.
First, do you think fellowship programs will verify scores or find out of the cheating?
Second, do you think I should report her? 🙁
Any advice, or info on anyone else whom you know has done it.
Also, why do residency programs and the ABS put us in this position?

Thanks

It's sort of shocking that someone can be so well-educated and yet so dumb. It immediately makes me question everything else she's accomplished. What corners did she cut to get these great letters and publications? Did she fabricate that data as well?

You state in your post that "her only problem is ABSITE scores," but I would argue that she has another huge problem: lack of integrity. Even if she gets away with this, it will come back to bite her eventually.

It's a ridiculous move anyway, since the majority of fellowships are not very competitive, and this appears to be her only tarnish. I agree with the above posters that you should recommend strongly against doing this. Then, if she does it anyway, she's made her own bed......

 

[error404]

You state in your post that "her only problem is ABSITE scores," but I would argue that she has another huge problem: lack of integrity. Even if she gets away with this, it will come back to bite her eventually.

Well said.

 

[BlondeDocteur]

I wonder why she even told you she was thinking about doing this. It sounds like she's admitting she's strongly tempted towards it and wants to be talked out of it. If her resolve had hardened she likely wouldn't have breathed a word to anyone.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Extraordinarily bad idea.

Outside of comments about her integrity, moral fortitude, etc. is the very real possibility that programs do request a copy of the report from the ABS and she is found out. That can be a career ending move.

 

[gerickson03m]

Not a good idea, plus any program that takes the ABSITE this serious is one that is not worth going too. Sounds like she has good clinical skills and works hard, research ect.. getting a spot should not be a problem.

 

[tri]

i can't speak for all fellowship matches because everyone uses a different program for applications, but my fellowship did get confirmatory reports from the ABS on absite scores for all applicants as part of the process. Either way, i think she's screwed