Lying on tmdsas application!!

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
S

steps25

New Member
10+ Year Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2009
Messages
9
Reaction score
0
My friend recently applied to texas med schools for 2010. Her stats were pretty good, but not impressive. She had only a 100 or so hrs of volunteering at a hospital. But she stated on her Tmdsas that she volunteered two years there and that she was involved in community service in a foreign country for a summer....complete lies!!! What she did was wrong and unacceptable from a doctor-to-be. But will med schools ever find out that she lied unless someone notifies them about it?
Members don't see this ad.
 
steps25 said:
My friend recently applied to texas med schools for 2010. Her stats were pretty good, but not impressive. She had only a 100 or so hrs of volunteering at a hospital. But she stated on her Tmdsas that she volunteered two years there and that she was involved in community service in a foreign country for a summer....complete lies!!! What she did was wrong and unacceptable from a doctor-to-be. But will med schools ever find out that she lied unless someone notifies them about it?
Click to expand...

Probably not unless she gave a reference for one of them and check into it. My guess would generally be no unless she gave them a reason to verify her involvement. It could, of course, become pretty obvious at her interview if they start asking questions about the time abroad!
 
Maybe, maybe not. But if they do find out, she will never become an MD. If she gets accepted and then somehow it is discovered while she is a med student, she has a very good chance at expulsion and having a permanent black mark whenever and where ever she applies after that, not to mention still having the remaining debt. Basically, if you are ever caught lying on your application (especially when it is as egregious as what you have described) you are blackballed at a ton of places, not just Texas med schools. I'm not sure if the MD schools are in with the DOs as well, but I suspect it will become readily apparent to them as well.

In other words, she's taking a huge risk with her despicable dishonesty and lack of integrity.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Wow. That is a huge risk to take. Absolutely not worth the chance that they will find out. It would be easy for them to ask questions in the interview about her overseas trip and realize she lied. Also, she will probably be nervous about her lies in the interview and that might possibly affect the way she interviews. All in all, very bad idea, and not ethical at all for someone who wants to be a doctor.
 
I wonder how many people actually lie in regards of their ECs...
 
My bet is that tons of people lie and exaggerate ECs because there is zero verification required. Same with the personal statement.

Just don't go overboard.

Can any Adcoms comment on the issue? Do you guys value EC stuff less because it doesn't have the validity of a college transcript or MCAT?
 
MexicanDr said:
I wonder how many people actually lie in regards of their ECs...
Click to expand...

I'd think at least exaggeration would be quite common. Like lying about hours and the actual roles you took in your activities and such.
 
A girl from my brother's University did something very similar. She received an interview, but said interview was withdrawn when they realized her statements about her ECs were both exaggerated and impossible.

Example: She said that she volunteered 10 hours per week for one year at ______ hospital (520 hours), and then for that same year said she went abroad to work at an orphanage at Vietnam for two months, and that during the Summer (the only time in her transcript which had no classes for long enough for her to have gone to Vietnam), she worked at a bone marrow bank.

Pretty easily caught! She was immediately rejected from every school she applied to and, if I remember right, she's been blacklisted at most of those schools.

Lying about your experiences = death to the application.
 
AMCAS maybe, but i definitely wouldn't lie on the Texas one. They still got the death penalty down there....
 
Unless the app is full of lies and inconsistencies, it's very difficult to detect.
 
Janieve said:
A girl from my brother's University did something very similar. She received an interview, but said interview was withdrawn when they realized her statements about her ECs were both exaggerated and impossible.

Example: She said that she volunteered 10 hours per week for one year at ______ hospital (520 hours), and then for that same year said she went abroad to work at an orphanage at Vietnam for two months, and that during the Summer (the only time in her transcript which had no classes for long enough for her to have gone to Vietnam), she worked at a bone marrow bank.

Pretty easily caught! She was immediately rejected from every school she applied to and, if I remember right, she's been blacklisted at most of those schools.

Lying about your experiences = death to the application.
Click to expand...


Ouch.
It is pretty bad when the lies are obvious.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
steps25 said:
My friend recently applied to texas med schools for 2010. Her stats were pretty good, but not impressive. She had only a 100 or so hrs of volunteering at a hospital. But she stated on her Tmdsas that she volunteered two years there and that she was involved in community service in a foreign country for a summer....complete lies!!! What she did was wrong and unacceptable from a doctor-to-be. But will med schools ever find out that she lied unless someone notifies them about it?
Click to expand...

This post is a little fishy to me...are you thinking of maybe doing this yourself and this is your safe, indirect way of getting advice? Something stinks.
 
futureboy said:
Yes, there have been a few SDN threads on the topic of lying/exaggeration on med school applications.
Click to expand...
Indeed. You'd have to be really smooth to pull off a lie as exotic as a trip abroad, but discussing a fake or grossly embellished volunteer experience probably isn't terribly difficult if you've done your research. Those experiences are often bland enough to get glossed over. I wouldn't take the risk, but I can see how some people might.
 
armybound said:
I doubt this is as uncommon as you'd think.
Click to expand...

Agree. My friend even lied about his religion and got into Loma Linda Dental school. He lied about his community service involvement as well.
 
Someone used to tell me that we are volunteering and all that stuff, because we are committed to serve, and give, not just for the sake of an application. 🙂
 
Last edited:
zetabetazeta said:
Someone used to tell me that we are doing volunteers and all that stuff, because we are committed to serve, and give, not just for the sake of an application. 🙂
Click to expand...

That would make for an interesting personal statement about your experience.
 
futureboy said:
That would make for an interesting personal statement about your experience.
Click to expand...

I hope I didn't ask too much, but do you mind changing your quote too? This is embarrassing on so many levels..🙁 Thank you!
 
zetabetazeta said:
I hope I didn't ask too much, but do you mind changing your quote too? This is embarrassing on so many levels..🙁 Thank you!
Click to expand...

Hon, don't worry too much. It happens to the best of us. No one here is judging you. <3
 
icalz said:
This post is a little fishy to me...are you thinking of maybe doing this yourself and this is your safe, indirect way of getting advice? Something stinks.
Click to expand...

No, why would I ever do that!! I volunteered religiously for two years and it irritates me when other people just make up hours on their application. Being her best friend, she confided this to me. But she is probably unaware of the consequences ( she is not an sdn member). Atleast now I can show her all of your replies. The risk is absolutely not worth taking!! Thanks guys!
 
steps25 said:
No, why would I ever do that!! I volunteered religiously for two years and it irritates me when other people just make up hours on their application. Being her best friend, she confided this to me. But she is probably unaware of the consequences ( she is not an sdn member). Atleast now I can show her all of your replies. The risk is absolutely not worth taking!! Thanks guys!
Click to expand...

You are being a good friend 🙂
 
zetabetazeta said:
This is embarrassing. 🙁 Sorry for my bad English..:scared:
Click to expand...

LOL

Don't worry about it!! He was just making a joke and we got a good laugh. Nobody is judging you as a person. 😉 We don't even know you. Faux pas typos happen all the time on SDN. All in good fun.
 
If you lie about bland hospital volunteer hours, nobody will probably find out and it probably won't make a difference in your app (push you towards acceptance or get you caught). However, if you lie about interesting things, then are asked about them in the interview, I bet it would be pretty easy to tell that you didn't actually do what you claimed you had.
 
Last edited:
I had wondered about this...because no one ever asked me for any contact information or even the name of the hospital I volunteered at. I was very honest with only around 180 hours of volunteer, but had I stated 1800 hours it wouldn't even have been questioned. It gave me the impression that 1800 hours wasn't more advantageous than 180....I guess what was important was that I got some time in. There's no way they could even verify my 180 hours because no one asked for any names.
 
icalz said:
I had wondered about this...because no one ever asked me for any contact information or even the name of the hospital I volunteered at. I was very honest with only around 180 hours of volunteer, but had I stated 1800 hours it wouldn't even have been questioned. It gave me the impression that 1800 hours wasn't more advantageous than 180....I guess what was important was that I got some time in. There's no way they could even verify my 180 hours because no one asked for any names.
Click to expand...

This was exactly my case that you spoke of. I have done 1500 hours of volunteer EMS and put it down on the application. My experiences were at least described in my personal statement though. My number was never questioned once.

I would guess there is a good bit of "accidental" 10's place errors and over estimation of hours to be done in the future.
 
zetabetazeta said:
Agree. My friend even lied about his religion and got into Loma Linda Dental school. He lied about his community service involvement as well.
Click to expand...

What's the point of him doing this?
 
interesting thread.

there are some things that no one can change: some people with questionable ethics will become doctors.

hopefully adcoms can see through this unscrupulous applicant's BS
 
iatros said:
interesting thread.

there are some things that no one can change: some people with questionable ethics will become doctors.

hopefully adcoms can see through this unscrupulous applicant's BS
Click to expand...

I think this is a bigger deal for employment or for business school. People are literally faking master's degrees, PhDs, previous employment and **** nowadays. That's why you have those transcript verification agencies (not to verify whether you actually took a course in CC and didn't put it down on your AMCAS).

I agree that this isn't uncommon but I don't think med schools care all that much either. Your comfort level shows during the interview. Also, whoelse puts total hours worked on their primary app? That has to be a purely SDN thing.
 
Wow there are people like this?

I know in movies you see characters who are extremely charming, socially graceful and they lie fantastically. But I feel like your average premed is too awkward or lack the skills to pull off a big lie haha.. I know I certainly couldn't. I'd feel uncomfortable even overestimating my volunteer hours by more than 5.
 
Eggs n Coffee said:
Wow there are people like this?

I know in movies you see characters who are extremely charming, socially graceful and they lie fantastically. But I feel like your average premed is too awkward or lack the skills to pull off a big lie haha.. I know I certainly couldn't. I'd feel uncomfortable even overestimating my volunteer hours by more than 5.
Click to expand...

Pre-meds come in all forms. Do not understimate their shrewdness...or incompetence.
 
I had a similar situation. I had an assignment in which I wrote a research paper that's basically a case series. It was a pretty legit paper in a medical research class, but I didn't think twice about it.

Fast forward to an interview, the interviewer asked me to talk about "research experience with Dr. so and so". I immediately realized that
1. I never did research with Dr.so and so
2. I studied under her and submitted a group project to her
3. I never read her LOR (although she offered).

She must have talked me up, but it was technically true that I did research under her guideline, just not the way I think about research.

I am a fast thinker and my memory is pretty remarkable, so I was able to state the topic of a random research paper assignment without any stutter at all.

I ended up getting in.
 
Handy388 said:
I am a fast thinker and my memory is pretty remarkable, so I was able to state the topic of a random research paper assignment without any stutter at all.

I ended up getting in.
Click to expand...


Lucky you.

Like all the above posters said, people do embellish a little and sometimes they think that have to do it because everyone else does it.

If you're comfortable lying, then reading this wouldn't stop you anyway.
 
I agree it's bad what your friend did...but it is not your concern. She has to walk around with the burden of being a cheater.

This reminds me of how athletes complain other athletes are using steroids. It doesn't matter if the other people are cheating unless they get caught...which they usually don't. Play your game and worry about what YOU'RE doing...thats ALL you can do.
 
UAAWolf said:
I agree it's bad what your friend did...but it is not your concern. She has to walk around with the burden of being a cheater.

This reminds me of how athletes complain other athletes are using steroids. It doesn't matter if the other people are cheating unless they get caught...which they usually don't. Play your game and worry about what YOU'RE doing...thats ALL you can do.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but that's BS. It DOES matter what other people are doing (cheating) when you're competing against them. When one athlete is using steroids to smoke the competition, it is the business of the competition because they're the ones losing to a steroid, not an athlete. When a med student wannabee lies, she's taking a seat away from another honest pre-med with her lies.
 
steps25 said:
My friend recently applied to texas med schools for 2010. Her stats were pretty good, but not impressive. She had only a 100 or so hrs of volunteering at a hospital. But she stated on her Tmdsas that she volunteered two years there and that she was involved in community service in a foreign country for a summer....complete lies!!! What she did was wrong and unacceptable from a doctor-to-be. But will med schools ever find out that she lied unless someone notifies them about it?
Click to expand...

She sounds a lot like you. Stop lying to yourself. Honesty's the best policy. I got in and I told them that I JUST started volunteering. Bad habit to get into as a doctor... but you've probably gone your whole life cheating/lying on and about little things. Shame that the personalities that make doctors are also the personalities that kill character and integrity. I'm going to make it a lifelong goal to stomp out any dishonesty I see in medicine. Hope that we never work together.
 
FloatOn said:
Pre-meds come in all forms. Do not understimate their shrewdness...or incompetence.
Click to expand...

I agree with this...at my undergrad they have a horrible reputation. They are ruthless when it comes to getting A's even to the point of blatant cheating. I can't tell you how many times a random pre-med has come up to me and asked "Hey, do you have a copy of the exam?" before we've taken the exam! I wouldn't even know where to get one, but they're floating around out there.

I use "they" because I don't hang around them, I observe them like some type of zoologist. Yes, I can easily see them lying their butts off and looking the interviewer straight in the eye while doing it.
 
UAAWolf said:
I agree it's bad what your friend did...but it is not your concern. She has to walk around with the burden of being a cheater.

This reminds me of how athletes complain other athletes are using steroids. It doesn't matter if the other people are cheating unless they get caught...which they usually don't. Play your game and worry about what YOU'RE doing...thats ALL you can do.
Click to expand...

Yeah, while the situation sucks big <insert anatomy of choice here>, it is entirely out of your control. You can (1) let it eat you up and make you angrier, (2) join them, or (3) shake your head and let it pass. You might be able to stop one or two cheaters somehow, but you'll never even slow the tide.
 
I had an interesting experience with an interviewer at a school in Texas. My highschool graduation date was reported as June 2004 instead of June 2000 which would have made a ton of ECs in my application impossible. The interviewer asked to see my drivers license to verify my age. It all worked out and i was later accepted. She told me that kind of thing (false reporting) happens more than one would think.

Adcoms are smart people, they are reading you when the ask about your experiences at the interview. I think after hundreds of applicant interviews it would be fairly easy to tell if someone isn't on the up and up. Could you get away with a little white lie here and there, probably. Will it help you get an acceptance, meh maybe but probably not. Could it result in you getting black balled, YES.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

T
Made a pretty apparent mistake on TMDSAS application I submitted. What to do now?
Replies
4
Views
517
ecobio
ecobio
L
  • Question Question
Publications as stand-alone TMDSAS activity?
Replies
3
Views
302
wysdoc
wysdoc
E
Putting relationship on application?
Replies
4
Views
382
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
P
OOS Applicant to TMDSAS
Replies
2
Views
1K
Sandman23
S
C
TMDSAS Reapplication Steps
Replies
2
Views
754
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
Top