Resume Padding and Lying on app

[knucklehead]

Words of caution to new apps, don't do either of the two on your app, or your app will get thrown out. Read the following link from 2006 with the Dean of Admission, the university is very serious and strict in regards with resume padding and lying on med applications.

 

http://premed101.yuku.com/topic/12908

 

If you are too lazy to click the link, here are the essentials that you need to know.

 

the UBC "evaluation team takes a fine-toothed comb through each application. They spend most of their time appraising and double-checking the contentious non-academic qualifications that carry equal weight to marks at UBC. ... One student, for example, claimed 200 hours of volunteer work in a lab where only 50 hours were logged before the lacklustre applicant quit. Another started a club in university so that he could be its president. Into the reject pile they go."

Moral: Don't lie on your application!

 

The evaluators have radar for resume padding. They also have filters for privilege. Only the affluent can spend six months in Africa volunteering at an AIDS clinic, says Frinton. 'It's become sexy to put stuff like that on an application. They think it will help, but it's not true. Look, good for them that they're able to do it, but they're not necessarily going to get extra points for it, she said.

This one surprised me a lot.

 

What do they get points for? "Leadership, caring work of all kinds, genuineness that is demonstrated through long-term commitments," says Frinton

[Chaplin]

One student, for example, claimed 200 hours of volunteer work in a lab where only 50 hours were logged before the lacklustre applicant quit. Another started a club in university so that he could be its president. Into the reject pile they go."

Moral: Don't lie on your application!

 

So does that mean that the guy who opened the club to be its president opened a club which ddnt exist or did the adcoms find out that he opened it up just to become its president?.....sounds like they have a lot of spies in the student community .

 

What do they get points for? "Leadership, caring work of all kinds, genuineness that is demonstrated through long-term commitments," says Frinton

 

Is this to say that the most points are given out for Leadership qualities, health related volunteering and research/ academic awards. If so, then how come a lot of people on this forum with even long term commitments in the above activities get only measly NAQ scores?

[AdamP]

Lying i'm against, technically I'm for resume padding though.

 

I've been thinking about this one a bit, I'm starting to think that motivations aren't super important, especially when it comes to volunteer work. I would be much more interested in looking at what was actually accomplished.

 

For instance, a big part of my ECs was with one organization. Spent (very modest estimation) 1000+ hours with them. I was open from the get go that what got me in the door was wanting to pad my resume and get various forms of experience. In some ways that's what kept me around too (although the org was awesome). Did they hate me for it, or want me to leave, no because I was getting a lot done and was a good volunteer.

 

From my experience too, we had a lot of members who were interested in other things, business, law, meds etc., what I found was those members actually got the most done, compared to some of the ones who were in it for pure interest.

 

So I dunno, I would want to reflect a bit more before you throw out all resume padding as a bad thing. If someone starts a club just to become president, but they get some amazing things accomplished, then who really cares why they did it in the first place?

[RiceWine]

Dr. Frinton, why is it so difficult to get into ubc medical school?

[FMX]

I'm totally against lying on applications. Period.

 

But like someone else has already said, resume padding is not a bad thing. The tone of the article makes it sound like going to africa would actually hurt an application. A lot of people do it for resume padding purposes, but a lot of people truely do want to go and help. How can the adcoms really judge the reasoning behind doing something like this?

 

In the interest of the less fortunate applicants, I don't think going to africa should get you >2 points on the NAQ, but I don't think it should amount to nothing at all either. Although you can not judge an applicants desire to help less fortunate nations, you can see that an applicant either shelling out all that money (or spending time to fundraise enough money to go on such an expedition) shows that the applicant is strongly dedicated to medicine due to the huge investment that was made for the 'resume padding' process.

 

People know that it is a tough game to get into medical school and the amount of work that we do to get in is supposed to make us 'stand-out'. But this article makes it seem like 'standing-out' is a bad thing and will only get us flagged for rejection.

 

On the topic of starting a club, that in itself is a very strenuous process and requires a certain amount of points due to the amount of time which may have been alotted to setting it up. How do the adcoms know if it was a genuine interest or if it was for 'resume padding purposes'?

 

In my personal opinion, if people just genuinely did things NOT for resume purposes, many things we have today would not be here. A lot of these things are done not JUST for medical school but for bettering a person generally for future employment, for self realization, for many other reasons aside from medical school.

 

Resume padding is a necessity of succeeding in life. Getting into medical school is like any other profession that can be equated as success in life. These two should not be mutually exclusive.

[lostintime]

I don't get how if someone starts up a club, why shouldn't they be the president? Likely if they start it up, they're going to be the person who knows how they want the club to run, so I don't get why someone else should be the president. In fact, I think the start-up process kind of lends it way to this.

 

Most universities have policies where clubs have to elect presidents, etc. in order to get funding for future years. But the start-up process itself, I mean, someone's gotta take lead and get things started.

 

Maybe they're referring to clubs that do absolutely nothing. Which does happen a lot and I doubt people really check these things.

[Dongzhuo]

I don't get how if someone starts up a club, why shouldn't they be the president? Likely if they start it up, they're going to be the person who knows how they want the club to run, so I don't get why someone else should be the president. In fact, I think the start-up process kind of lends it way to this.

 

Most universities have policies where clubs have to elect presidents, etc. in order to get funding for future years. But the start-up process itself, I mean, someone's gotta take lead and get things started.

 

Maybe they're referring to clubs that do absolutely nothing. Which does happen a lot and I doubt people really check these things.

 

I think they are referring to people who can't fight their way to be a senior exec in any established club, and go forward to set up their own useless club so as to be the president. But then again, I don't know about you guys, but at least 60% of clubs on campus are basically useless, and exist simply to be a renewable source of resume padding for generations of students to come.

[finks]

I think a lot of people pad their application....I know a few people who got in stretching the truth......even one girl that went too far in my opinion......but she got in on her first try and is now going into 3rd year!

I also know of someone who had only done volunteer work with their parents, no health care related stuff, no research....nothing outside of helping her parents organize events/ clinics and she still got in!!!

I haven't padded my application for fear of getting caught!! I have the kind of luck that if I ever stretched the truth I would be thrown out for sure! But then again I'm going to try for a third time so maybe the jokes on me…