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theconfusedapplicant

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They'll verify your employment with whoever you list as a contact, not with the IRS. It won't come up on financial aid applications, either.
 
I do not understand why you would want to list off-the-books jobs that you had before college. Unless they were exceedingly interesting or very important to whom you ultimately became, I do not see the point. Medical schools generally don’t care about your pre-college employment history. Also, given that you were employed illegally, your employer may not wish to acknowledge your employment in order to avoid any entanglements down the line.
 
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I actually did put a job like that on my application, but that was because it was an interesting side gig I had throughout college and my gap years. Rule of thumb is if an experience was before college don’t include it unless you continued it through college.
 
I think employment history is one of the few things you should put on an application regardless of when it took place. @Goro @LizzyM Interesting question.
 
When I was around 16 I held a few jobs for a couple of years that I got paid under the table for (cash) and since I actually held these jobs for a few years I wanted to include them on my work/experience section of my application. My family doesn't make much money and I was planning on applying for financial aid packages (if I get accepted) but was afraid that putting these jobs while having no tax returns to back them up would put me at risk or get me in trouble.

Have any of you put jobs you haven't filed taxes for on your applications before, and did anything ever come up with AMCAS/medical schools denying you financial aid packages or anything?

Thank you.
What happened in high school stays in high school.
 
One may list high school employment in the work & activities section if there is room. There is no rule against it. Commonly, there are more recent things that are more important and when something has to be cut, the most logical place to cut is for jobs held in HS.

There is also no rule that you must list all employment on the application. If someone did not want it to be known that they worked off the books as a Nanny for a VIP's kids, there is nothing saying you must list it.
 
The thing is, I'm a high school dropout and I worked these jobs after I left high school but before I started college. Should I still list them?



I don't have 15 activities so I wouldn't have to cut anything for this, but as stated above I'm a high school drop out and I think conveying that I actually did some work while I was out of high school is better than saying I did nothing. But since my jobs were off the books I'm a bit worried of getting in some sort of trouble.
Go ahead and list them.
 
Given that you were around 16 when you had these jobs, I don't think that they are particularly material one way or the other. If you otherwise have a competitive medical school application, ad coms are going to realize that you've grown tremendously since that time. Ad coms are going to care far more about your college GPA, MCAT, and more relevant post-high school ECs.
 
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