Today I bring you a spin on the classic phrase from Hamlet’s soliloquy which is one of the most recognizable in all of literature. Most of you studied Shakespeare in high school and may have even read Hamlet. The soliloquy in essence speaks to Hamlet’s struggles with the toils of life and his contemplation of whether perhaps death would be a more attractive or suitable alternative. So how does this relate to the application process to medical school.
Every year we receive between 1500-2000 applications to review. Most of them are stellar and it’s difficult for us to differentiate. We wholeheartedly understand that the competition to get into medical school can be overwhelming. Many candidates look at the smallest ways they believe will differentiate themselves from others. This unfortunately leads some applicants to embellish parts of their application, overstate their involvement in particular activities, or worse, fabricate or falsify entire sections. How good this be true of someone who want to be in medicine…impossible.
Disturbingly, surfing other websites and blogs, this practice is not uncommon. More recently, I read an entry on another website of a candidate asking whether they should increase the number of hours they actually worked per week while in school to differentiate their 4.0 GPA from perhaps those that didn’t list part-time work or who worked but less hours. If your reading this, you may think, so what is the big deal, who cares if someone worked 6 hours per week and entered that they worked 12. Simply put we see these as acts of commission. Candidates need to think and reflect before they enter information and then choose “yeah…it’s ok…I’ll just enter 12. At the admissions level, these type of entries when uncovered make us question the remainder of the application, it’s genuineness or authenticity and the honesty and integrity of the applicant. There is no such thing as “a little white lie” in the admissions process. When you re-read your application before submitting it ask yourself ; “is this a true reflection of me?” That is what we want to see in the application. We want to see you not who you want us to believe is you.
This is why we have revised policies in the application manual which is addressed in Section 4 and 8.2. As you can see, applicants will be held accountable for what is in their application even beyond the application cycle. including if they are admitted.
So as Hamlet chose “to be” as an applicant choose “to be me”. Remember if Hamlet chose the alternative it would have been suicide.
