Should I lie/exaggerate on my Business School application?
Hi everyone. I am delighted to be part of this vibrant community.
I did a bit of web development here and their. Like, maybe a few thousand dollars a year. Should I exaggerate this on my B school application, to account for a bit of unemployment? I did some freelance work online and stuff.
ALSO, do those fuckers even check? If so, how do they check? I can just throw them the names of a few friends if they want to confirm I did something. But I want to say, like, I pulled in 20K a year when it was more like 2K. How would they check that?
Thanks a lot!
There*. And no, I would not lie on my b-school application. How long did the unemployment last, anyway?
6 months.
Never lie on an application or resume, they will check and you will be in serious trouble. That said, some degree of spin is ok (i.e. say that you were doing freelance work, maybe change the wording to make it sound better, maybe somehow linking it to entrepreneurship but don't mention how much money you made). As a general rule, never ever lie about something that is possible to check (I got a 4.0 GPA, I founded x, I am fluent in Mandarin etc). You can always omit facts, exaggerate somewhat (note that this is not in how much you did but in qualitative stuff, changing to focus on something more impressive while still being somewhat hedged). One way you could do this is by focusing on the most impressive 10% of what you did, focusing on what you learned and how its relevent, or by making it somehow part of your path to change the world by starting a tech company for instance (or whatever grandiose ambition you have that will look good for admissions). You can also somewhat make up why you did it. Nobody needs to know that you freelanced because you couldn't find a job, you can write about a desire to build programming skills and tie it to wanting to start a company or change the world somehow. Lastly, you can blame a third party, although exercise discretion (I would be more careful about this, but it can work if used right. An example of it being used right would be to explain that you didn't take many finance classes until late undergrad because your major had tough course requirements if this applies). But it is important to never ever outright lie.
Thanks a lot for that info. I can just say, "I did freelance and programming work" without mentioning how much I made. Because if I tell them the amount I made, it looks shit. And if I tell a bigger number, that is a lie.
But I can just say, "I did freelance work" and then talk about how I had to learn programming, and develop my skills. That is not a lie, and thus they can't deny me admission, if they find out the shit money I made.
Don't tell them how much you made. Even if they ask (which they won't), it's your private income. Tell them how many clients/projects you had or how many hours you worked. Talk more about what you learned from it than what you actually did.
I'd focus on the impact of the work rather than the description of the work. Learning programming won't differentiate you. Something like "developed x portal for marketing firm with $50mm in revenues, which led to impact y for the firm". This is what the schools really care about, not how much you were compensated or how many hours you worked. It's OK to ballpark the numbers as long as they're fair estimates, and don't feel the need to overinflate them. Top schools doesn't care about the difference between an added $20,000 or $100,000 in revenues for the target co, it's all in the same ballpark and tells the same story.
This saves you from putting in a boring resume line about knowing how to program, they can infer that, and adds in something that will differentiate you from others with a similar day-to-day background
My impression as a business school student is that people tend to exaggerate to the same degree as joe schmo on the street (namely, a fair bit). I would recommend that you understate, because I intuit from your words and writing style that your propensity to exaggerate is above the mean, and you want to be around the mean value to avoid trouble. I understate, which has hamstrung me in a few instances, so take this with a grain of salt.
Any school worth going to does background checks.
Some T25s don't, but then there is also a credible argument for not going to a T25 and below.
I would advise you to just be honest. Try thinking about other stuff you did while unemployed and see if you can tie that in to make it sound like you were busy all the time.
Just be completely truthful in your application and you'll be confident in your interview and if you feel like your application is not up to scratch start working NOW on improving it.
Being honest is overrated. Say whatever you can get away with to tell a better story. That is, be smart and strategic about where and how to "stretch truths".
At the end of the day, it's all just a story-telling contest anyway.
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