General question about resume.

In general, they take your word for it, but if they have any reason to believe you might be, they can always try to verify it by calling the organizations you say you volunteered for. Alternatively, they can also ask you about your experiences doing X in an interview, and they can usually smell BS answers.

In summary, don't lie about anything on your app; if you lie and it works, it might help you a little bit, but if it comes out, you're screwed.

 

A good logical thinker can pick something like this out. If you have a job and work 20 hours a week, that gives you very little time to do other stuff besides classes. If you said you volunteered on average of 5 hours a week, you would be ok. If you said you volunteered on average of 10 to 20 hours a week, I would check on it.

Just be honest. The truth is, and it shouldn't be shocking, a good high percentage of applicants to any graduate school "up" their EC stuff from what the truth is.

 

Exactly, even if a little fudge in your numbers helps you, if you're caught lieing you will be dismissed and if you don't get caught, it will hang in your conscious throughout your life.

 

It is customary, when listing an experience, to add at the end of the narrative describing the experience, the contact information of someone who can vouch for you, like name, title, phone # or e-mail, maybe address. The institution name is asked for at the beginning, but the other info you add on your own. This is also the place where one can total the accumulated hours.