How do medical schools verify your ECs?

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uclakid

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Just the fact that you're asking........:rolleyes:
 
I don't think they usually do.

Just the fact that you're asking........

Come on...I haven't applied yet, but I know there are people out there who mess with the dates of their hospital volunteering gigs and what not. :) Right, wrong, I don't know...but you know it has got to happen a fair amt.
 
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How do medical schools verify the ECs you do? They don't...
 
Just be prepaired to answer questions...
 
Yeah I really doubt they verify because on the AAMCAS application they don't ask for phone numbers nor do they ask for an address. So if your going to fudge something, make sure you have a concrete story to go with your fudging you big fudger you.
 
I'm sure if something looks fishy, they wouldn't hesitate in calling up the place. Its not something to risk.
 
They search SDN Forums for our posts, correlate them with our personal statements and the ECs on our lists, project all matches together on a screen, close their eyes, and then...............with all the mighty confidences ever exist in this universe...................let the dart sail!

How do adcoms find our posts here? Don't worry! They have a lot of darts for that purpose. I heard that those darts are las-vegasly equipped with some navigating dice too.

Have a nice spin everyone!

:clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :D
 
People have gotten caught before. Its very rare, but if your adcoms knows someone or finds a time/location inconsistency, you're not going to med school anywhere... ever.

Plus, then your ugrad can file academic dishonesty papers against you as well for your record.
 
For Ontario med schools and most other Canadian schools, you have to provide a phone number and reference for your significant EC's . They sometimes call to check up to make sure you volunteered at X hospital between Y -Z dates!

If you're caught lying or falsifying anything on your application (even if you are already in med school) you are thrown out of the university and remain kicked out for at least 7 years and then you get to apply all over again, from scratch!!!!

So yeah lying is just NOT worth it and its ethically wrong!
 
Originally posted by LUBDUBB
I'm sure if something looks fishy, they wouldn't hesitate in calling up the place. Its not something to risk.
I've know someone who had a fake LOR, got caught, and the school called all the other schools and he got rejected across the board.
 
when it comes to issues such as this (ECs, LORs), my view is the same as the old cliche" honesty is always the best policy...

My undergrad. chemistry tutor (who was also a dear friend) lied to one of his professors about why a certain paper was never turned in. In order to save himself, he lied and stated that his little brother had been killed in an accident, and that this accident affected his ability to complete work. This same professor later wrote a letter of recommendation for my friend and mentioned the "death" of my friend's little brother.

During a med. school interview, the interviewer asked my friend about his little brother, and he stated that his little brother was doing well. This account was obviously inconsistent w/what had been written in the LOR. The med. school discovered the lie, contacted all other med. schools, and contacted the college we attended. He was expelled and then thrown out of school. This brought both he and his family great shame. Sadly to say, my friend took his own life shortly after...

I still can't believe he's gone...

Clearly, this is an extreme example of how your lies can come back to get you. I, of course, don't want to sound like I'm preaching to anyone...I just wanted to add my thoughts...
 
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Wow Docjolly's story is really extreme...

Anyways, I think med schools will probably only check up on the ones that they're familiar with...really no point to check up on every single app.

I remember I was reading application for an honor society, and one applicant claimed that he was involved in a program I was in charge of. Out of curiosity, I checked my member's list and that applicant wasn't on there. I emailed him and apparently he was "planning" to join the program when he wrote the application but ended up not joining.

He wasn't accepted to the honor society anyway, but not because of this.
 
wow. docjolly, thats a tragic story. kids, please dont lie! honesty is the best policy.
 
Originally posted by docjolly
when it comes to issues such as this (ECs, LORs), my view is the same as the old cliche" honesty is always the best policy...

My undergrad. chemistry tutor (who was also a dear friend) lied to one of his professors about why a certain paper was never turned in. In order to save himself, he lied and stated that his little brother had been killed in an accident, and that this accident affected his ability to complete work. This same professor later wrote a letter of recommendation for my friend and mentioned the "death" of my friend's little brother.

During a med. school interview, the interviewer asked my friend about his little brother, and he stated that his little brother was doing well. This account was obviously inconsistent w/what had been written in the LOR. The med. school discovered the lie, contacted all other med. schools, and contacted the college we attended. He was expelled and then thrown out of school. This brought both he and his family great shame. Sadly to say, my friend took his own life shortly after...

I still can't believe he's gone...

Clearly, this is an extreme example of how your lies can come back to get you. I, of course, don't want to sound like I'm preaching to anyone...I just wanted to add my thoughts...

wow!!
saying someone(esp close fam member) died though is kinda extreme
 
adcoms are smart people and they have been doing this for years...i think they have good instincts when it comes to people trying to lie on their apps.

inconsistencies do occur and people do get caught.
i dunno...id have enough faith in most applicants to think that most of us would not fudge dates, hours or say we did things we didnt do.

a common example might be...putting down you volunteered longer and did more hours than what you really did. your ask your volunteer coordinator to write you an LOR...your volunteer coordinator puts down the actual dates and hours you have worked. you get screwed if those arent relatively close.
 
AMCAS does ask for a contact name, phone number and address, although they are optional. It seems to me that med schools should verify your application to work with chronically ill, mentally unstable, elderly, vulnerable, etc, populations. Especially when my friend has been put through the ringer by having all of his references checked and what not just to get a job at J. Crew. I can't believe med schools don't do the same.
 
At not one, but TWO of my interviews, it turned out that my interviewer knew someone who was very connected with the volunteer work that I did. I'm really glad that I didn't fudge anything.

I agree with others here that most adcom members are pretty capable of telling a true volunteer experience story from a fictional one. Since they can reject you for any reason, I wouldn't give them any encouragement to think that I might be exagerrating.
 
docjolly,

I had only heard the story from a friend of a friend of a friend who went to your school. I am amazed to come across someone so close to the situation. Thanks for posting.

~Lubdubb
 
i heard a similar story about someone falsifying an LOR. i'm not certain of the identity of the person but i am FAIRLY sure of it; the person i'm thinking of was admitted to medical school, and then kicked out about a month into the program. this guy also asked me to read his PS (we're not friends but i was his t.a.) and it was a little lacking in the modesty department, which adds to my suspicion that it might have been him.

at any rate, i can't imagine how someone would/could go about faking an LOR...especially for medical school. there are some evil people out there, i suppose.
 
hmmm...... so if on my AMCAS, i write that i volunteered 140 hours and my volunteer coordinater who had the exact figures says it was only 134, am i screwed?
 
well im not sure that 134 and 140 would be a problem...depends on the date of the lor because you may have completed 6 more hours between getting the letter and completing your amcas. BTW, amcas asks you hours per week (if i remember correctly), not total hours. in other words, schools are concerned about how long you were doing something and how involved you got. so long time and many hours per week=good. now you could put your total hours in the description box. but remember, its the lenght, committment, and involvement that really counts. quality over quantity of EC's. no reason to lie if you have gotten good quality involvement in just a small number of activities.

btm line, its stupid to do. i think it will come across in your interviews that you lied. even if you are a good liar. what you do REPRESENTS WHO YOU ARE and that means a lot, in my opinion. if you arent that person that you showed on paper, then i think they will know.

my friend just interviewed at ucsf dental. the interviewer spent most of the time asking her how many hours she did each single activity. and she didnt know exactly what to say precisely bcz she had faked some of it. not good.
 
I was getting my hours from the hospital I worked at. The lady said, it looks like x amount of hours and she entered the total into her computer and asked when I'm applying. She is a family friend and my father works in their hospital. She said medical schools do periodically CALL and VERIFY hours. So those who lie, will get caught. It might be AFTER their acceptance or before, but eventually - verifications of EC are the norm according to this supervisor / family friend.
 
It is not that med school adcoms don't want to varify every applicant's LOR's and EC's, it's just that it would take way too much time and effort. First of all, these committee members already do two jobs (full time physician and/or faculty member or researcher and committe member) and so additional work load would be asking too much. Second, most of the applicants are so afraid of making any mistake on their application, they make sure that everything is exact and if it is not, the mistake is usually not significant (like mistaking whether you started doing your year of volunteering in July of 2002 or June). The only reason that potential employers check references is that they only have a limited amount of candidates for the position and these people only have a few references.

Still, for the people that actually lie on their application, I don't really understand why they do it. To me it seems that the potential of getting caught and the subsequent consequences (basically never getting into medical school) would steer any and all cheaters away from fudging up the facts. I mean, what is the most that a person can lie about and get away with it: Putting down a volunteer experience that he/she never did, stretching the amount of hours worked or volunteered,and that's it. A person would be stupid to lie about anything that deals with paid work experience or hours, anything transcript related (i.e. grades, honor rolls, dean's lists, awards, etc.), and publications because all of these things can be checked very easily. As many others have said on this thread, I believe that honesty is the best policy.

Good luck to all in this long and worrysome process.

dmitri
 
Originally posted by verbalassasin
I really doubt they verify because on the AAMCAS application they don't ask for phone numbers

Actually, they do. It's not unknown for adcoms to call up your referees to get further info either.
 
Originally posted by Gleevec
People have gotten caught before. Its very rare, but if your adcoms knows someone or finds a time/location inconsistency, you're not going to med school anywhere... ever.

Plus, then your ugrad can file academic dishonesty papers against you as well for your record.

I think it has to be a big time/location inconsistency for you to be called a liar. I guestimated some of the hours I did since I had a hard time remembering how many hours/week on average I was doing in my EC's.

Also, question, I wrote down an EC that I stopped doing but wrote on my AMCAS that I'd be doing it till May. I'm wondering if that's ok?
 
Let's say you volunteered somewhere for one hour per week. If you put on your AMCAS that you volunteered for two hours per week, is that really a big deal?

And yes, I volunteered only one hour per week because it was SO boring I couldn't stand anymore than that. As was all my other volunteering, though I forced myself to do three hours per week of the other types.

To me, those people who think inflating your hours is "evil" in some way should get off their moral high-horse. Inflating your hours isn't any more morally suspect than the thousands of pre-meds who, when asked what their hospital volunteer experience meant to them, describe how they gained "valuable interaction with patients" when all they were really doing was transporting urine specimens to the lab. I mean, COME ON PEOPLE!!!!!
 
Originally posted by Kashue
Also, question, I wrote down an EC that I stopped doing but wrote on my AMCAS that I'd be doing it till May. I'm wondering if that's ok?

I'm worried about this too. I wasn't deliberately trying to lie, but I honestly can't remember when some of my EC's started/ended, so they might be off by a month. I'm also wondering about whether I have to continue my activities until July, which is what I put on my application.
 
Originally posted by NemoFish
Let's say you volunteered somewhere for one hour per week. If you put on your AMCAS that you volunteered for two hours per week, is that really a big deal?

And yes, I volunteered only one hour per week because it was SO boring I couldn't stand anymore than that. As was all my other volunteering, though I forced myself to do three hours per week of the other types.

To me, those people who think inflating your hours is "evil" in some way should get off their moral high-horse. Inflating your hours isn't any more morally suspect than the thousands of pre-meds who, when asked what their hospital volunteer experience meant to them, describe how they gained "valuable interaction with patients" when all they were really doing was transporting urine specimens to the lab. I mean, COME ON PEOPLE!!!!!

1 hour a week vs. 2 hours a week is not going to get out into or keep you out of medical school. Trust me.

Edit: I'm not saying that it's not enough hours. I am saying that the extra hour a week is not gonna make the difference of getting in vs. not.
 
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Ever seen the show on NBC: Meet my parents.

This is how they verify your ECs. They call in the balding guy and hook you up to a polygraph and ask you embarassing questions about your past dating history and collegiate exploits.

Coops
 
but why would you put down 2 hours a week when you only did 1.

and about your comment about fudging hours being the same as talking about our experiences in volunteering. many of us do have genuine experiences that we have gained from volunteering which are real and true. unlike putting down something you didnt do like doubling your hours.
 
Some talks prevention, others talk morale. Everybody, except those in the outer skirt, has the same interest here. But so far, still, I am more and more interested to know "How do medical schools verify your ECs?"

May be some insider, or even eavesdropper, would shed some light on us how/if this issue has ever been addressed.

As far as I know, jails are always overcrowded everywhere and none of the interviewing processess that I know or heard of has ever come close to a legit lie detecting session. Without a preventive guideline, it is not logical to assume that a corrective protocol would exist. And some adcom may have to base the quick decision only on the inadequate info available at hands. So while criminals are fearless, the adcoms' swords may be the two-edged ones that cut both ways.
 
I don't see why you care so much. I agree with the poster commenting on how you people should get off your moral high horse. There are posts like this every so often and the main thing to realize is that it is not that cut and dry. The hours and dates on amcas are estimates. Also, they just ask for a start date and an end date. I will give you an example. I TA biology since i was a sophomore so I put down the start date of my sophomore year. The end date I put the end of my senior year. However, I didn't TA one semester because I had too much going on. On amcas I couldn't list that. Also, I am required to TA for 3 hours a week and one hour of meetings. So my prof would say i work four hours a week probably. I put down five because I take about an hour to review the lab myself and reread areas I am shaky on. Is this wrong? Of course not, b/c they ask how much time and that is how much i spend on this activity. Also, I don't start working until about two weeks into the semester and I stop about a week or two before the end because labs stop. So should I factor those weeks in and bring my avg. work hours down? Also, what about the summer months when I don't work at all. Should I then average the whole summer when I am not working as a TA? I called aamc when i was doing my app and asked questions like do i put 4.35 hours a week and what to do about summer months. They told me not to worry and to round to nearest whole number. Therefore, these hours and dates are averages.
Another example is i work at a homeless shelter for on avg. about an hour a week because i go one week and then not for three weeks. But it is really more like 2 hours a week because i have to buy food and organize friends to volunteer. So again, the hours are more of an estimate. I think med schools realize this and are basically concerned whether you did it. If you are debating between 1 and 2 hours or even 1 and 3...whatever, that is not a big deal. NOw if i put down i worked 15 hours a week when you worked about one, yeah that is wrong. Mainly med schools are concerned if someone just makes up that they did something. If i was never a TA for bio, but said i was, then that is a lie. But to correctly count all the hours i put in and the questions about whether to factor in summers and time off is not really that important. Sometimes I answer bio questions outside of class. There have been times where i have spent an hour or two on a weekend going over someone's lab with them. It is just too hard to get the EXACT number.
As far as putting the end date as the end of senior year goes, I asked about this at two of my interviews after reading posts like this before and getting nervous. At one interview I asked the dean and he said it is not a big deal and that if I put down i was going to do something senior year and didn't do it for a semester (i got in by the way). At another interview, I asked an interviewer and he said that the committee realizes these hours and dates are estimates and are mainly concerned whether you actually did an activity and what you gained from it. So stop quilting honest people into worrying. Some people do purposely add hours, etc. Most do not! Lies should be dealt with accordingly, but incorrect or nearly incorrect estimates of hours are unimportant.
 
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