GRRR people making up EC's

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ponybreeder4

ponybreeder4

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So i know this girl who said she did over 200 hours at a pharmacy when she didn't step foot in there..but since her dad knows the owner they wrote her a recommendation letter saying she volunteered there. How messed up and unfair is this? I am half tempted to email the pharmacy school and tell them its BS! She got invited to interview!
 
There is someone that I KNOW to have really (and I mean really) fudged some activities on amcas, and (s)he got into med school before me! This kind of crap frustrates me to no end. 👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎
 
it happens. lol.
 
I'm sure she'll become a terrible pharmacist...

But seriously, why do you care?
 
Hate to be the devil's advocate
but you all are saying it as if Ecs are what get you into med school
Could it be something else that pushed them over the edge
- back to real life if they have to lie it must suck to know on the inside adcoms didn't accept you for the real you
 
I will tell you why it makes me angry...because here i am spending about 20 hours a week doing legit EC's...time that could be spent studying...while she participated in NO activities at all...all she did was study so of course her GPA will be better!
 
Well at her interview they will probably ask her questions about her "volunteering" and they'll be able to tell when she tries to BS her response.
 
CafeMed said:
Well at her interview they will probably ask her questions about her "volunteering" and they'll be able to tell when she tries to BS her response.
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yeah, thats what i really dont get about this process. im sure there are a lot of ppl who BS their ECs. but i guess that's life
 
If it really bothers you and you're a tattletale, seems you know her enough (i.e. have her name) that you can drop the dime on her. AAMC/AMCAS investigates application fraud and I assume they do it quite seriously considering there's several people they have listed on their website whose duties involve some form of fraud on the application.
 
+pity+

worry about your own application first and then when you are an adcom or even a student interviewer in med school you can worry about other people's applications. i dont know y this is of any consequence to you....at least when you get in you can say you did so despite the lying scumbags out there and you'll have a clean conscience to boot.
 
... its not what you know... its who you know.

I feel like lying will only get people so far. But I also KNOW that, that's not true!
 
ponybreeder4 said:
I will tell you why it makes me angry...because here i am spending about 20 hours a week doing legit EC's...time that could be spent studying...while she participated in NO activities at all...all she did was study so of course her GPA will be better!
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What do you mean by "legit" EC's. most ec's, whether you did them or not have absolutely no bearing on wheather you will be a good doctor. (I volunteered in an outpatient clinic and just sat there surfing the web; as soon as i filled out the AMCAS and got a letter I dropped it like it was hot. Does the fact that i was actually there make my EC better? hell no.) The truth is that EC's are just another easy way for ADCOMS to weed people out (which is the job of an ADCOM considering that there are roughly 30 people applying for each spot).
 
dont worry about her app; worry about yours. what happens to her is out of your control. focus on what you can control.
if you arent happy w/ your grades, why not cut back on ECs and give yourself more time to study? 20hrs is a lot, and id say that much time isnt completely necessary especially if it's hurting grades.
 
chemnerd89 said:
There is someone that I KNOW to have really (and I mean really) fudged some activities on amcas, and (s)he got into med school before me! This kind of crap frustrates me to no end. 👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎thumbdown👎
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yeah that's lame. Look having good ECs is essential to getting in to med school. I'm convinced that the reason I didn't get interviews from the schools is because I lacked better ECs. But if I were you I would just stop associating with people like that person. Personally, my biggest pet peeve is someone who lies.
 
i wouldn't worry about someone else fudging their EC's. trust in karma.
 
Lucky, i need to meet more doctors.
 
Yeah, there are certainly flaws in any admissions process and unfortunate things like this do happen; its the (dishonest) risks that people take. I am surprised that she was able to answer some of the interview questions well and use personal experiences as stories during the interview process. Since you can't do anything about it (unless you become a whistle blower and contact the institution that accepted her), worry and strategize on your own application and college experience. Good luck and sorry to hear about that.
 
wow.... you can't do anything about it yet you're still pissed about this? Either call up the school and report them, which is probably not worth your while, or mind your own business and spend rage time improving your own application.

Personally I know that if you lie you WILL GET CAUGHT EVENTUALLY and you will PAY. There are no exceptions. Keep your integrity intact and just do your own thing.
 
immonpath said:
Hate to be the devil's advocate
but you all are saying it as if Ecs are what get you into med school
Could it be something else that pushed them over the edge
- back to real life if they have to lie it must suck to know on the inside adcoms didn't accept you for the real you
Click to expand...
EC's make a huge difference in getting you into medical school so long as you make the initial paper cut, which is often 3.5+, 30+. (Note: The importance of EC's decrease as MCAT and GPA scores increase drastically. I.e. 38 MCAT and 3.8 GPA with weak EC's will probably still get in)
 
cyclin M said:
wow.... you can't do anything about it yet you're still pissed about this? Either call up the school and report them, which is probably not worth your while, or mind your own business and spend rage time improving your own application.

Personally I know that if you lie you WILL GET CAUGHT EVENTUALLY and you will PAY. There are no exceptions. Keep your integrity intact and just do your own thing.
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why are you so certain that every liar and cheater will eventually be caught ?
 
Life is unfair. That's about all there is to say about this.

As was said above, since this affects you minimally (and no, I would not go so far as to say that this person "stole" a medical school class seat from you because of their cheating - that's impossible to determine), I would suggest only worrying about your own life and getting yourself into medical school. You could easily spend your entire life preoccupying yourself with others' shortcuts and unmerited advantages, since many - to varying degrees - are willing to step all over you to get what they want and won't think twice about it.

If it makes you feel better, an individual's willingness to cheat could very well indicate a propensity for such behavior, which means that they could be caught one day.
 
cyclin M said:
wow.... you can't do anything about it yet you're still pissed about this? Either call up the school and report them, which is probably not worth your while, or mind your own business and spend rage time improving your own application.

Personally I know that if you lie you WILL GET CAUGHT EVENTUALLY and you will PAY. There are no exceptions. Keep your integrity intact and just do your own thing.
Click to expand...
Since many good responses have been provided, I just want to say that your avatar is awesome! I used to play that game all the time.
 
Are you sure that person is just messing with you to make you angry? I know some people who are compulsive liars, who go around lying all day, every day about pretty much everything to see if they can get away with it. Are you certain that this is even the case, do you have proof that this person did such a thing and stated it on her application? If you don't, then you're just taking what she says at face value.
 
You should report her for the sake of the integrity of the admission process.
 
Don't be a snitch. Karma is always a bitch and eventually those who falsify info will have it come back an haunt them in one form or another. Stop being so vindictive and bitter... Let it go.
 
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ncb said:
You should report her for the sake of the integrity of the admission process.
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really? I am all for integrity, but the OP should worry more about themselves instead of the 'competition' Perhaps the committee already sniffed out the BS ECs and is already dealing with it. If you go around reporting people you'd better be 100000% sure that you know they fudged their app. Sticking your nose into other peoples business in a process as scrutinized as applications can be a very very dangerous business.

added: It is the SCHOOLS job to evaluate the ECs, not yours. Advice: Don't go stepping on the adcoms turf.
 
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Brodiewankenobi said:
really? I am all for integrity, but the OP should worry more about themselves instead of the 'competition' Perhaps the committee already sniffed out the BS ECs and is already dealing with it. If you go around reporting people you'd better be 100000% sure that you know they fudged their app. Sticking your nose into other peoples business in a process as scrutinized as applications can be a very very dangerous business.

added: It is the SCHOOLS job to evaluate the ECs, not yours. Advice: Don't go stepping on the adcoms turf.
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Have you ever heard of ADCOM's looking into peoples EC's and taking action after they offered an acceptance ?
 
jdandturk said:
Have you ever heard of ADCOM's looking into peoples EC's and taking action after they offered an acceptance ?
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Don't know. If LizzyM is lurking around here maybe she'd be able to give some insight. If every applicant list 15 ECs and an incoming class is 200 people, it'd be next to impossible to check every EC. However, you have NO idea who is on the adcom and who they might know. So you really are playing with fire if you lie. If they found you out, your punishment might depend on how egregiously you lied. Complete fabrications would be bad news.
 
Don't hate the player, hate the game.
 
They'll figure it out or it won't help her much.

While many people look at ECs as some inane requirement to get into medical school its actually a really great way to see someones interests. If you did good ECs that you were truly involved in and truly enjoyed it will show through in your essays and interview and it will be a HUGE help in getting an acceptance.

If you did something just to do it (and didn't actually get anything out of it) or if you didn't do it at all and lied then it will be very obvious. It may not necessarily hurt you. But it certainly won't help you.

People who really enjoyed their ECs are so much fun to interview, they almost always have plenty to talk about and they leave very good impressions on their interviewer. People who didn't do or did their ECs only to pad their app are boring. Getting answers is like pulling teeth they speak very generally and boringly about what they did and they rarely leave a good impression. THIS IS WHERE ECs MAKE ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN GETTING IN.
 
Brodiewankenobi said:
Don't know. If LizzyM is lurking around here maybe she'd be able to give some insight. If every applicant list 15 ECs and an incoming class is 200 people, it'd be next to impossible to check every EC. However, you have NO idea who is on the adcom and who they might know. So you really are playing with fire if you lie. If they found you out, your punishment might depend on how egregiously you lied. Complete fabrications would be bad news.
Click to expand...

If you're itching to report somebody's fake EC's and you're afraid of personal repurcussions, it is possible to do so anonymously. At my HS, for instance, there was a guy who got into Harvard but lied about a lot of stuff on his app. A teacher somehow found out about this and wrote an anonymous letter to the adcoms detailing all the stuff the guy had lied about. Harvard quickly dropped the kid's acceptance.
 
I know of one instance of ECs getting checked out after the interview but before the admission decisoin. There was something hinky about the applicant's interview responses and the adcom asked to have some phone calls made.
 
LizzyM said:
I know of one instance of ECs getting checked out after the interview but before the admission decisoin. There was something hinky about the applicant's interview responses and the adcom asked to have some phone calls made.
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One instance out of how many hundreds/thousands of students over the years?
 
Raryn said:
One instance out of how many hundreds/thousands of students over the years?
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Out of maybe 750 who we've considered admitting (we wouldn't bother checking on someone who was unacceptable on other grounds).

Do very, very few people lie? I doubt it. We don't get too excited about a difference of 2 hours per week or 4 hours per week or an activity done for 10 weeks or 21 weeks. Exaggerating won't get you a leg up in those cases.

I suspect that some applicants may be nervous in the interviews if they think that they'll be asked about things that will uncover their lies. Those people could come across as so unhinged and nervous that they get rejected on those grounds without ever bringing the veracity of the application to bear on the situation.
 
gujuDoc said:
Actually it is both. I've read Karma described as such. If it is analogous then so be it but it is how many define karma.

Taken directly from Wikipedia:
Karma (Sanskrit: कर्म Karma.ogg kárma (help·info), kárman- "act, action, performance"[1]; Pali: kamma) is the concept of "action" or "deed" in Indian religions understood as that which causes the entire cycle of cause and effect (i.e., the cycle called saṃsāra) originating in ancient India and treated in Hindu, Jain, Sikh and Buddhist philosophies.

Please do your research before you make ******* comments!!
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Way to not get a joke 😡
 
LizzyM said:
We don't get too excited about a difference of 2 hours per week or 4 hours per week or an activity done for 10 weeks or 21 weeks. Exaggerating won't get you a leg up in those cases
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Interesting.

So, in theory, is the diversity and number of ECs more important than the time commitment spent with each one? Do you think ten different volunteer experiences of 10 hours each is valued more than a single experience of 100 hours?
 
MDman87 said:
Interesting.

So, in theory, is the diversity and number of ECs more important than the time commitment spent with each one? Do you think ten different volunteer experiences of 10 hours each is valued more than a single experience of 100 hours?
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might be a balance between the two... i know LizzyM has talked about the classic one-day-in-a-soup-kitchen example before.
 
So I'm guessing adcoms might background check EC's only if the student acted suspiciously during interviews. Too bad these people are also very glib when it comes to oral communication.
 
gujuDoc said:
The rolling eyes sounded like you were insulting me not trying to make a joke. That's why i was harsh. I hate that smiley cuz its usually used in a negative and harsh connotation.

So I'm sorry if that threw me off.
Click to expand...
:biglove: for guju
 
Is it just me, or do these topics appear once a week?
 
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