Weak resume + short freelance experiences. Is Big 4 consulting still realistic with a strong referral?

Looking for some honest advice on my chances of breaking into Big 4 consulting.

I’m currently at a solid semi-target/top-20 university with a GPA of 3.5 and will be graduating in 2027. Academically and career-wise, I haven’t made the most of college and my resume is pretty weak compared with the typical consulting candidate. I have a few freelance experiences, but most only lasted a few weeks because they were short-term projects. I don’t have the traditional consulting or finance internship experience that seems to be expected.

Because the experiences were so short, I’ve tried to make the resume bullets sound more substantive by emphasizing the work and projects I actually contributed to. I’m concerned, though, that some of the bullets may make the experiences sound more substantial than they really were and I'm struggling to be honest about the actual work.

So, I have a few questions:

1. How heavily do Big 4 firms verify freelance experience? If I list a legitimate freelance engagement but describe the work I actually did in a fairly strong way, would this typically be checked through background checks? Or are background checks primarily verifying the employer and dates.

2. How much can a strong partner/MD referral realistically compensate for a weak resume? If I were able to get a genuine referral from someone senior at Deloitte/EY/PwC/KPMG, would that materially improve my chances of getting an interview, or is a resume this weak still likely to get screened out?

3. Would you recommend being more conservative with the bullets? My concern is that if I write everything exactly as it happened, the resume looks almost empty. At the same time, I don’t want to cross the line into misrepresenting my experience, especially since I’m worried about background checks later.

4. Given that I have another year before graduation, what would you prioritize from here? More freelance projects, campus leadership, networking/referrals, case competitions, another type of internship, etc.?

I’m carrying significant student debt (100k+) so I’m trying to be realistic about my options after graduation and make the most of the time I have left. I’m not expecting a lot at this point, I’d be very happy to get into a solid role to start paying my debts and use that as a stepping stone.

Would appreciate blunt feedback on whether this is realistically recoverable and what you would do in my position. I struggled with bipolar disorder throughout college, and I take responsibility for not building the experience I really needed. I’m now focused on making the most of the time I have left and finding a realistic path toward a successful career.