Is it normal for applicants to significantly exaggerate their work/activity hours?

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Laurenxxxx

Laurenxxxx

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Fess up everyone. I want to know if my truthful hours stand a chance.
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My numbers are, for the most part, accurate although two of my shadowing days were never recorded in my excel sheet so I guesstimated.

The ones that are not accurate, I just left at 999 and said basically there is no way to calculate this accurately. Example: I cannot reasonably estimate how many hours I've done theater over a 20 year period. I just can't. I can safely say it is at least 999 hours.
 
Yeah and it freaking sucks because it ruins it for a lot of people. Apparently there's a very fuzzy distinction between honest and dishonest when it comes to embellishing hours. Since applicants are posting such ridiculous hours for their ECs, honest applicants feel the need to match those hours. This just makes the whole process crappy for everyone involved. Feeling the need to devote the best years of your life in undergrad solely toward medical school admissions is a one-way ticket to burnout.

I honestly wish there was more oversight over ECs. Sure it might be fine to list 300 hours when you did 270 hours of volunteering, but not 300 hours when you did 30 hours of volunteering. But where do you draw the line in-between?
 
Planes2Doc said:
Yeah and it freaking sucks because it ruins it for a lot of people. Apparently there's a very fuzzy distinction between honest and dishonest when it comes to embellishing hours. Since applicants are posting such ridiculous hours for their ECs, honest applicants feel the need to match those hours. This just makes the whole process crappy for everyone involved. Feeling the need to devote the best years of your life in undergrad solely toward medical school admissions is a one-way ticket to burnout.

I honestly wish there was more oversight over ECs. Sure it might be fine to list 300 hours when you did 270 hours of volunteering, but not 300 hours when you did 30 hours of volunteering. But where do you draw the line in-between?
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I couldn't agree more. It sucks that people think they have to lie to think they have a shot. Gap years are a god send to get EC commitment though. But as far as "embellishment", more me I think it's more I didn't accurately keep track of the amount of time, but i wouldn't grossly overestimate.
 
Planes2Doc said:
Yeah and it freaking sucks because it ruins it for a lot of people. Apparently there's a very fuzzy distinction between honest and dishonest when it comes to embellishing hours. Since applicants are posting such ridiculous hours for their ECs, honest applicants feel the need to match those hours. This just makes the whole process crappy for everyone involved. Feeling the need to devote the best years of your life in undergrad solely toward medical school admissions is a one-way ticket to burnout.

I honestly wish there was more oversight over ECs. Sure it might be fine to list 300 hours when you did 270 hours of volunteering, but not 300 hours when you did 30 hours of volunteering. But where do you draw the line in-between?
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20% error.
 
Yes, it isn't unusual. I didn't do this because I'm not extremely close family friends with any physicians (and because I'm honest) but I personally know two people who used their connections to exaggerate their shadowing by hundreds of hours.
 
You would think medical schools could pay someone minimum wage to contact the references of the EC's of their incoming class. The fact they don't contact them makes me think EC's don't really matter.
 
chillinillinkillin007 said:
You would think medical schools could pay someone minimum wage to contact the references of the EC's of their incoming class. The fact they don't contact them makes me think EC's don't really matter.
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but if they said ECs dont matter in their process how could they rationalize saying they holistically screen?
 
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mrh125 said:
but if they admitted ECs dont matter in their process how could they rationalize saying they holistically screen?
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they say that just to make their school look better. No school is going to be going around saying we don't holistically screen. A school looks better if they say we have a diverse class, screen holistically, and we value commitment to the community and people. Obviously some truly care about this stuff a lot more whereas others don't care as much.
 
I think they check some big things. Both the people I know who seriously embellished their hours were able to do so confidently because they were close acquaintances with the physicians they "shadowed," who would happily lie for them.

I should mention that these two people live in a different area of the country than I do, where this exaggeration is apparently relatively expected and where college/medical school admissions (and many other things) are evidently influenced to a disturbing degree by social connections...
 
Well, if ECs don't matter then what even is the point?
 
Spinach Dip said:
Oh but they do!

Just TRY getting into med school with 0 shadowing/clinical experience hours.
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I'll trade my clinical hours for your amazing mcat score!

But you're right, I don't honestly see how anyone could be successful with no ECs at all.
 
I am assuming that even if one does exaggerate there hours to some extent, they do actually have some hours. Like, saying you shadowed 300 hours when you only did 30 is ridiculous but saying you did 300 when you actually did 180 still shows that you did something. One hospital that I volunteer at actually has a system for accounting hours so I can use that to show schools that i actually am volunteering the hours that I list.
 
I know a girl her only EC was living in Italy, she had nothing else besides a 3.7 gpa and a 40 MCAT. 40 MCAT= she got in somewhere.
 
I don't necessarily embellish, but I did always round to numbers that were multiples of 5.

45 hours just looks better than 43.2 or something, and I bet its easier for the adcoms to read too...
 
EMDO2018 said:
I know a girl her only EC was living in Italy, she had nothing else besides a 3.7 gpa and a 40 MCAT. 40 MCAT= she got in somewhere.
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lol I love the mcat equality 🙁, yet if you have the a 28/29 mcat and a boatload of amazing ecs you may not get anywhere 🙁. talk about depressing.
 
I shadowed for 1 hour, but I put down 2 hours 😀
 
familyaerospace said:
My numbers are, for the most part, accurate although two of my shadowing days were never recorded in my excel sheet so I guesstimated.

The ones that are not accurate, I just left at 999 and said basically there is no way to calculate this accurately. Example: I cannot reasonably estimate how many hours I've done theater over a 20 year period. I just can't. I can safely say it is at least 999 hours.
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That's a good idea. I have been riding horses since I was six and am struggling to decide what to put for number of hours.
 
If you're EC's are good enough and LORs good enough you don't need to exaggerate.

For example. Two applicants did research. 1 applicant has a summer of research and did an abstract. No LOR. The second applicant has 2 years of research at NIH. 4 publications. Strong LOR. Applicant 2 doesn't even did to open their mouth. They're done. They're finished.

Ideally you want an interview where you don't need to "open your mouth" i.e. You're not explaining yourself or defending yourself in regards to what's on your application. (Yes, you will have to explain yourself but it's going to be deeper. Instead of asking hour many hours they will ask what did you enjoy etc.)

So instead of defending your research the person is enjoying your research.
 
Espadaleader said:
If you're EC's are good enough and LORs good enough you don't need to exaggerate.

For example. Two applicants did research. 1 applicant has a summer of research and did an abstract. No LOR. The second applicant has 2 years of research at NIH. 4 publications. Strong LOR. Applicant 2 doesn't even did to open their mouth. They're done. They're finished.
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Thats great if you happen to be the 1:10000 applicants who has research experience like that.

For the other 9999, a little exaggeration might start to look good....
 
Spinach Dip said:
Thats great if you happen to be the 1:10000 applicants who has research experience like that.

For the other 9999, a little exaggeration might start to look good....
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It's an example.

Similar examples can be made with volunteering, shadowing, etc.
 
Planes2Doc said:
Sure it might be fine to list 300 hours when you did 270 hours of volunteering, but not 300 hours when you did 30 hours of volunteering. But where do you draw the line in-between?
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I don't think it's okay to add 30 hours just for the sake of rounding; it's still dishonest. I have odd number hours on my app (e.g. 41 hours) but saw no reason to misrepresent them. Be a responsible, adult individual and keep track of your involvement in things like shadowing and volunteering where the exact number of hours may be easily recorded, and then tell the truth. This isn't hard.

As was the case with @familyaerospace, there was only one spot on my application where I had no way of knowing the exact number of hours, so I estimated and put a number that, while large, is most definitely not greater than the actual (unknown) number. For instances like that the hours clearly matter less than the length of involvement.
 
gettheleadout said:
I don't think it's okay to add 30 hours just for the sake of rounding; it's still dishonest. I have odd number hours on my app (e.g. 41 hours) but saw no reason to misrepresent them. Be a responsible, adult individual and keep track of your involvement in things like shadowing and volunteering where the exact number of hours may be easily recorded, and then tell the truth. This isn't hard.

As was the case with @familyaerospace, there was only one spot on my application where I had no way of knowing the exact number of hours, so I estimated and put a number that, while large, is most definitely not greater than the actual (unknown) number. For instances like that the hours clearly matter less than the length of involvement.
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You see! That's exactly my point! I saw in some other thread where someone was using an example of a 30 hour difference, and they thought it wasn't a big deal. I agree with you completely. It took me all of a minute to call my volunteer coordinator at the hospital, and get the exact number of hours. I submitted the exact up to date hours when filling out my information for the school's committee letter. If your volunteer site has a computer logging system, then it's very easy. If not, be proactive and make an Excel spreadsheet. Like you said, it isn't that hard.
 
I think applicants are cheating themselves by exaggerating. The individual who had a real 100 hours is going to be able to talk much more about that activity than the individual who put 100 but only did 10. I've heard of a few cases of people getting grilled during an interview and their lies coming undone.
 
Planes2Doc said:
You see! That's exactly my point! I saw in some other thread where someone was using an example of a 30 hour difference, and they thought it wasn't a big deal. I agree with you completely. It took me all of a minute to call my volunteer coordinator at the hospital, and get the exact number of hours. I submitted the exact up to date hours when filling out my information for the school's committee letter. If your volunteer site has a computer logging system, then it's very easy. If not, be proactive and make an Excel spreadsheet. Like you said, it isn't that hard.
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That's what I did, used the excel sheet for my shadowing. I rounded to 15 minute increments. I'm still kicking myself that I didn't record two days (my computer was not working), but at a certain point the difference is less than 2% difference at most due to the huge amount of hours I have.

The hospital computer for medical volunteering said 352, so I believe I put that down to the hour.

In my opinion it's really hard to estimate hours from before one realized one had to organize and keep track. If I had known I was going to be asked such weird questions, I would have started keeping track of my theater hours when I started as a child. Or my non-medical volunteering over the past decade or more. I know I do a certain minimum per week, how many weeks per month I work, how many months per year I work and how many years I've done it. If anything my hours are listed low but I've done some of my activities for longer than some premeds have been alive. ;-) I assume the adcomms will understand.

I should have recently calculated a certain type of community involvement, but that is another one I am listing at 999 and saying look I worked for this group, that group, the other group, and spend a minimum of X hours per week. Ugh... but at least my references can back it up and roughly does so in his letter. If they call up one of my references and say "How many hours roughly has Mr Aerospace volunteered with you? He says 999 hours?" The answer will be something along the lines of "1000 seems far too low!"
 
If you exaggerate your hours, you may get in but you'll never know if you could have done it on your own merits. There's something to be said for earning your way.
 
I had exactly 50 hours of shadowing completed the week before I wanted to submit my application on June 3rd. I thought it looked too dishonest, so I set up another day of shadowing and added 6 more hours on June 2nd so I could list 56 hours of shadowing, and not have the 50 hours there. Even though I did really do exactly 50 hours, it seemed like a made up number.
 
BrCo said:
I think applicants are cheating themselves by exaggerating. The individual who had a real 100 hours is going to be able to talk much more about that activity than the individual who put 100 but only did 10. I've heard of a few cases of people getting grilled during an interview and their lies coming undone.
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That's ridiculous. For the sake of discussion, there's certainly a threshold for hours you'll actually experience very diverse stuff for. Of course if you have only 30 hours and you say 300 hours, you're gonna be caught dead in your tracks. But if someone legitimately did 200 hours and they say 400 or 500...I don't really think they stand to get caught at all.
 
I would like to think everyone is giving a honest approximate amount of hours.
 
Cambover said:
If you exaggerate your hours, you may get in but you'll never know if you could have done it on your own merits. There's something to be said for earning your way.
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Yes, but:

1- A large portion of pre meds don't care how they get into a school
2- There are tons of ways in which one can get into a school which are not purely based on self merit (ex: connections, luck, legacy, URM, etc)
 
ichor said:
That's ridiculous. For the sake of discussion, there's certainly a threshold for hours you'll actually experience very diverse stuff for. Of course if you have only 30 hours and you say 300 hours, you're gonna be caught dead in your tracks. But if someone legitimately did 200 hours and they say 400 or 500...I don't really think they stand to get caught at all.
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But at that point the difference between the exaggeration and reality is lessened. I honestly don't think that, so long as you did something you enjoyed and got something meaningful out of it, that there is more than a slight difference after 200 hours in the eyes of the admissions committee. If I were on a committee, that's how I would see it anyway.

Essentially, that threshold works both ways. While the 30 and 300 are different, the 200 and 400 aren't actually that different. Which makes lying in that way almost more ridiculous than the person who makes a 10 hour activity seem like it went 200 hours. At least in the first instance the lie ostensibly serves a purpose, morality aside.

Fabio Lanzoni said:
Yes, but:

1- A large portion of pre meds don't care how they get into a school
2- There are tons of ways in which one can get into a school which are not purely based on self merit (ex: connections, luck, legacy, URM, etc)
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^This. If people cared about how they got there, gunners wouldn't be a thing. To many applicants med school is a be-all end-all and the ends justify almost any means. Which is sad.
 
Fabio Lanzoni said:
Yes, but:

1- A large portion of pre meds don't care how they get into a school
2- There are tons of ways in which one can get into a school which are not purely based on self merit (ex: connections, luck, legacy, URM, etc)
Click to expand...
I don't know about a large portion of all 60,000 applicants but there is definitely a vocal gunner population who would fudge hours. I also don't think connections and legacy get you as far as you think at this stage. Maybe an interview, but that's an argument for a different thread.

Still, you shouldn't focus on what others may or may not be doing. Lying on applications is a rat - race to the bottom that you don't want to win.
 
Cambover said:
I don't know about a large portion of all 60,000 applicants but there is definitely a vocal gunner population who would fudge hours. I also don't think connections and legacy get you as far as you think at this stage. Maybe an interview, but that's an argument for a different thread.

Still, you shouldn't focus on what others may or may not be doing. Lying on applications is a rat - race to the bottom that you don't want to win.
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Oh but the reality is that most people will lie on their application. Whether it's over the top or "acceptable" is debatable. People can be noble all they want but the truth is that they are losing out. The first person who was 1000% honest on their app feel free to speak up. I used to be in the all-about-honesty camp (that's how I applied anyhow), but now I just think it's a noble, but stupid maneuver.

Reality is that to get far in life you can either work your ass off and hope to get recognized, or play the game and get recognized. Most people have realized the latter is much easier with greater reward.
 
Fabio Lanzoni said:
Oh but the reality is that most people will lie on their application. Whether it's over the top or "acceptable" is debatable. People can be noble all they want but the truth is that they are losing out. The first person who was 1000% honest on their app feel free to speak up. I used to be in the all-about-honesty camp (that's how I applied anyhow), but now I just think it's a noble, but stupid maneuver.

Reality is that to get far in life you can either work your ass off and hope to get recognized, or play the game and get recognized. Most people have realized the latter is much easier with greater reward.
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I don't think most people are lying on their applications. I would bet that there's only a small minority who truly fudge numbers to "play the game." SDN gives an altered sense of the applicant pool and attracts more gunners than anywhere.
 
Cambover said:
I don't think most people are lying on their applications. I would bet that there's only a small minority who truly fudge numbers to "play the game." SDN gives an altered sense of the applicant pool and attracts more gunners than anywhere.
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Yeah only a small amount of people balloon their hours by 400% and saved imaginary babies in Ghana, but how many people do you think embellish their apps by 5 hrs here, one piece of motivation there, and another reason for why that school is the best one ever? I'm willing to bet it's the vast majority. That's just the nature of applications when it's not purely GPA+MCAT combo.
 
Now that they ask you to include anticipated hours it is much more difficult. That's why I ended up using round numbers for many of my activities. I ended up extrapolating what I had been doing but it is subject to error. I probably ended up slightly overestimating some activities while underestimating others. But I doubt the error will be much more than 5%.
 
Fabio Lanzoni said:
Yeah only a small amount of people balloon their hours by 400% and saved imaginary babies in Ghana, but how many people do you think embellish their apps by 5 hrs here, one piece of motivation there, and another reason for why that school is the best one ever? I'm willing to bet it's the vast majority. That's just the nature of applications when it's not purely GPA+MCAT combo.
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I see what you're saying now and it's a fair point. But then there's a difference between selling yourself/your application to the school and lying on an application. The question is where to draw the moral line and a pertinent one for future professionals who will have lives in their hands.

BTW, those babies in Ghana were real I tell ya! :laugh:

claduva94 said:
Now that they ask you to include anticipated hours it is much more difficult. That's why I ended up using round numbers for many of my activities. I ended up extrapolating what I had been doing but it is subject to error. I probably ended up slightly overestimating some activities while underestimating others. But I doubt the error will be much more than 5%.
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I had an incident where I was injured playing my sport and that significantly changed my hours of participation. I updated the school, but there's really no way to perfectly predict the future.
 
It's funny that a lot of you are justifying 'small' lies vs. 'big' lies. That tells me most people lie in their application, but the ones that embellish a little bit find a way to justify what they do by saying to themselves-- it's not a big deal. For me it does not matter that someone had 30 hours and put 200 vs. someone who had 200 and put 25o... a lie is just simply a lie. You should not put in your application something you did not earn or do, whether it is 5 hours or 150 hours. Period.
 
Cambover said:
I had an incident where I was injured playing my sport and that significantly changed my hours of participation. I updated the school, but there's really no way to perfectly predict the future.
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That is definitely what I plan on doing if something significant happens. I'm curious how it affects how entries can be potentially verified now.
 
A lot of my activities I could not give a completely accurate number for since I never recorded hours for them. I had to estimate to the best of my ability. I acquired a lot of hours in some activities and very few in others.
Sometimes I was tempted to exaggerate hours, but I was more worried about lying on the application. Sure, lots of people get away with it...but what if you're one of the people who doesn't?
 
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