Hey, just though I should put my two cents in. A little background: 39 MCAT, ~3.8 GPA, and now entering a top 3 school for the upcoming c/o 2019. To me, when it comes to lying on the AMCAS, it shouldn’t be done half heartily, it requires meticulous planning, flawless execution and complete dedication. As has been expounded on multiple times in this thread, the consequences of failure are dire; If the school just suspects you’re lying, they probably will just not accept you. However, if they have hard evidence of dishonestly, they will probably notify AMCAS, etc. Of course, for privacy reasons, I can’t go into complete detail of what I lied about, but I’ll give a rough outline of the steps necessary to successfully put this off:
1. Pick what you what you want to lie about. I think the most important step in this is to know what you CAN’T lie about. Things like grades, MCAT and letters of recommendations are a no-no.( the last one is considered forgery and can get you into actual law trouble) In addition, I wouldn’t recommend anything that has the possibly of being verified, such as criminal histories, research publications, and attendance of program with set institutions. With these, the possibly of being caught are too great. All it takes is one phone call from an enthusiastic ADCOM for the ruse to be up. This means stuff like REU, major hospital volunteering and AmeriCorps/Peace Corps are off limits, so you really have to do some nominal volunteer work. So what are some good things to lie about? For me, my sweet spot was obscure hobbies, diversity stories and self-created orgs that didn’t really have a strong organizational connection. One example is (I didn’t use this one btw) staring an volunteer tutoring service to elementary school children, where you were in chance of recruiting fellow volunteers in area elementary schools. (use school teachers at the schools as your contact info, making sure to Google them beforehand so there won’t be phone numbers attached to the person) the most important thing is to create a large knowledge discrepancy between you and the interviewer.
2. PLAN PLAN PLAN For this, make sure you look at every facet of each activity and make sure you defense of it is solid. As stated in the thread, many people particularly interviewers will ask probing questions about the unique activity/hobby. Make sure to do as much research as possible about the subject. For me, an invaluable resource was reddit. A good gauge is if you can make a 300+ word posts in the subreddit pertaining to the topic and seem like an partaker of the hobby. Also, if the activity/hobby is niche/rare enough, you can intimidate the interviewer with your superior knowledge, forcing them to switch topics, although this may only be effective on student interviewers. (I did this once at UChicago with an student interviewer, who started to catch on) On contact info: get burner phones,. I suggest Walmart, and get at least two for SOILD stand out activities. There are plans for 10$ month, no minutes, so you can just add a nominal amount of minutes and keep it active for the year you’re applying.
3. Don’t tell anyone: self-explanatory. Take it to the grave. As already been said in a post, if the school ever finds out (even if you’re a 4th year) it’s ground for kicking you out. Don’t brag to friends, don’t confide in girlfriends, don’t tell anonymous internet forum members, anything.
Anyway, basically you just need to plan and use common sense, and you should be on your way to an acceptance in no time. For me, even though I got amazing grades, I didn’t really get out much and knew that the schools would question my EC and realize I’m just an ‘4.0 automaton”. To convey this, I lied/ heavily embellish on about 5 activity spaces. I was able to get some amazing acceptances, However due my meticulousness of my planning, including using burners, creating websites etc. Good luck!
