Ethical dilemma--omitting undesirable transcript from incomplete school

[ABrown]

Long story short, I'm applying to graduate programs for next Fall and I would like to avoid mentioning a school that I attended five years ago but did not finish and did not perform well at. I've decided to play it safe and go ahead and include the transcript and an explanation; however, I have a burning desire to know how, exactly, such a case would be caught by a prospective school.

Is there some central database admissions committees can use to determine which schools you have attended in the past, or is there another way they find out? Or are they actually unable to find out, leaving it incumbent upon the applicant's honesty (and Raskolnikovity) to mention every school attended, no matter how unpleasant?

Thank you.

 

[Andy D.]

ABrown - I'm not sure how this works, but I guess you could consider it as follows: You can re-take your GRE and only have to submit the highest score. So in theory if you did a degree, were not happy with your performance and thus did a second, I could see no problem with applying for a graduate program, with the GRE and degree transcripts you performed best at.

I can't see what problem a University - or employer for that matter would have with it.

 

[Ken Abbott]

@ABrown: Don't do it. Be 100% honest. Provide an explanation, if necessary. I know people that have been kicked out of grad school for submitting misleading information and people how have been fired for submitting false applications. This kind of error can haunt you for your entire career.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

You are required to submit ALL your transcript from ALL of your postsecondary education.
The penalty for intentionally omit or hide some detail is severe. Your degree may get revoked.
Learn to accept the past.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Is there some central database admissions committees can use to determine which schools you have attended in the past, or is there another way they find out? Or are they actually unable to find out, leaving it incumbent upon the applicant's honesty (and Raskolnikovity) to mention every school attended, no matter how unpleasant?

Thank you.

You want to take your chance? This is taken randomly from the admission website of an MFE program.

Verification Process: We are committed to ensuring the integrity of our admissions process and the reputation of our educational programs. We also want to protect and enhance the value of the degrees that we confer on our students. To guard against any allegations that candidates may have misrepresented themselves in their admission applications in an effort to increase their chance of gaining admission to a competitive graduate program, we have made the decision to establish an independent verification of application credentials for all of our master's students. We believe that this verification will support our efforts to ensure integrity throughout the program. Upon admission, you will receive more details about this process.

 

[ABrown]

Again, after briefly flirting with questionable ethics I have decided to do the right thing and play it straight. Nevertheless:

You want to take your chance? .

...we have made the decision to establish an independent verification of application credentials for all of our master's students

An "independent verification of application credentials" sounds like it will only confirm the positive--i.e. that what you did say is true. My question was how they uncover omitted information, if they are even able to do so.

Let me make an analogy: when you go to a new doctor, you sign a release form or otherwise agree to make all of your past medical records open to the new office. If graduate school admission were this organized, none of us should have to specifically order hard-copy transcripts from old schools. The lack of such an option makes me wonder if they even have the means by which to hunt down all relevant details from your past.

At the end of the day, honesty is much easier on the psyche. The main reason this question persists in my mind is curiosity about procedure.

 

[bigbadwolf]

An "independent verification of application credentials" sounds like it will only confirm the positive--i.e. that what you did say is true. My question was how they uncover omitted information, if they are even able to do so.

They probably don't. And probably couldn't care less. But if your temperament is akin to that of Raskolnikov, perhaps your course of action is best.

But try looking at it from another angle: schools are not releasing their placement rates -- deliberately, so as not to discourage prospective students. Is this not reprehensible? Or, alternatively, in the US you can still plead the 5th: refuse to testify where such testimony might incriminate you.

 

[euroazn]

@ABrown... have you done the Google test? That's the best DB they've got...

 

[Ken Abbott]

Again, after briefly flirting with questionable ethics I have decided to do the right thing and play it straight.

This is a rather scary thread. Look, you're either sqeaky clean,,,or you're not.

Finance (and particularly trading) is a business that will test your moral strength. There are plenty of weasels that succeed (I've known a few), but they're easy to spot.

If you're easily tempted, you'd do well not to go into trading.

 

[DominiConnor]

It's not an ethical dilemma, any system of ethics that I know of has lying as a bad thing.

I like tests for things, and to me the test is to put yourself on the other side, and ask whether you would feel that you had been misled.

We all leave things out of our records, partly because it doesn't all fit, and as a professional reader of CVs, as well as someone who helps fix them, I see leaving things out as ethical, providing that you are not intentionally trying to deceive.

On my own academic past, I have never put on my CV that I am so very bad at painting that over the course of a term one teacher became convinced in his own mind that I was trying some sort of mind game on him by doing it so awfully, and got quite upset. Years later the art director of PC Magazine called a screen shot I did, the worst image ever to appear on a computer screen.

But no one really cares, because no one ever hired me to do art.

I don't know Baruch's admission procedures, and with all due respect I don't believe it has the resources to fully check for omissions, but there is a risk.

As a headhunter I regularly have conversations with people who have 'holes', and if you were one of my people, I'd be counselling you to put the shortest possible entry. Then grasp the nettle and say '5 years ago I screwed up, realised I had to dig in deeper to get where I want to be, and here I am", in words that fitted the person and the situation.

 

[TraderJoe]

Look let me spell it out for you in one word "KROLL".

This is the background checking service that is used by ALL the Top 50 MBA programs and also by the MFE program at UC-Berkeley. They will verify your academic transcripts, your employment record (dates, positions, salary), your criminal background check, and a credit check. If Kroll pulls something up, no admission. The reason they do this is because that when they are trying to place you, the companies will run these background checks and the university cannot place you if there is something fake in your background.
If Kroll does not find out something wrong and they admit you and later find out that you faked something, then it is even worse - immediate expulsion and revocation of the degree if awarded. If you can go to sleep every night with something like this on your mind, then you must be mentally tough.
Also the students are really smart. If you fake something to get admission, for how many years can you keep on faking it. You will be struggling to keep up with the other students.
Also, how many things can you fake. Maybe you can use an admissions consulting service to write the MBA essays and SOP and reference letters which will be automatically signed by your boss. But there are bound to be some red flags - GMAT score, academic transcripts, etc.

 

[Andy D.]

Looks like I stand corrected on this then, I presumed you would just submit your best marks with an application.

 

[coolharvard]

You want to take your chance? This is taken randomly from the admission website of an MFE program.

Verification Process: We are committed to ensuring the integrity of our admissions process and the reputation of our educational programs. We also want to protect and enhance the value of the degrees that we confer on our students. To guard against any allegations that candidates may have misrepresented themselves in their admission applications in an effort to increase their chance of gaining admission to a competitive graduate program, we have made the decision to establish an independent verification of application credentials for all of our master's students. We believe that this verification will support our efforts to ensure integrity throughout the program. Upon admission, you will receive more details about this process.

What type of "verification" could they have done? They can not possibly check with every single school in the United States to see if an applicant had gone to a school but that school isn't listed in the application? They have hundred of applicants, and I don't think it's efficient to do this for every applicant.

 

[coolharvard]

Look let me spell it out for you in one word "KROLL".

This is the background checking service that is used by ALL the Top 50 MBA programs and also by the MFE program at UC-Berkeley. They will verify your academic transcripts, your employment record (dates, positions, salary), your criminal background check, and a credit check. If Kroll pulls something up, no admission. The reason they do this is because that when they are trying to place you, the companies will run these background checks and the university cannot place you if there is something fake in your background.
If Kroll does not find out something wrong and they admit you and later find out that you faked something, then it is even worse - immediate expulsion and revocation of the degree if awarded. If you can go to sleep every night with something like this on your mind, then you must be mentally tough.
Also the students are really smart. If you fake something to get admission, for how many years can you keep on faking it. You will be struggling to keep up with the other students.
Also, how many things can you fake. Maybe you can use an admissions consulting service to write the MBA essays and SOP and reference letters which will be automatically signed by your boss. But there are bound to be some red flags - GMAT score, academic transcripts, etc.

It sounds like this "KROLL" company only verifies what is on the application, but can not verify what is NOT on the application....

 

[TraderJoe]

It sounds like this "KROLL" company only verifies what is on the application, but can not verify what is NOT on the application....

True. But this leads to gaps in the resume and Kroll can verify that the person was not in prison during those gaps in the resume. The interview may become tough.
Also, Kroll is just a $50 pre-MBA background check which hopefully helps prevent a $50 Billion Madoff type scam or the type of situation where some of these MFE grads are landing up in prison for intellectual property theft.

 

[Andy D.]

I know people who worked for Kroll in the UK, when they were students themselves.
I'll have to ask them what the whole school background check involves when I see them next.

True. But this leads to gaps in the resume and Kroll can verify that the person was not in prison during those gaps in the resume. The interview may become tough.
Also, Kroll is just a $50 pre-MBA background check which hopefully helps prevent a $50 Billion Madoff type scam or the type of situation where some of these MFE grads are landing up in prison for intellectual property theft.

 

[ABrown]

Wow--I had no idea my query would generate this much interest, confusion, and debate. Nor did I ever intend to enter the realm of the "scary." In retrospect, I should have worded this differently, leaving out ethics entirely.

It's not an ethical dilemma, any system of ethics that I know of has lying as a bad thing.

The question was about omission, not lying. I'm not sure how that word even entered the discussion in the first place.

We all leave things out of our records, partly because it doesn't all fit, and as a professional reader of CVs, as well as someone who helps fix them, I see leaving things out as ethical, providing that you are not intentionally trying to deceive.

Makes sense to me.

...grasp the nettle and say '5 years ago I screwed up, realised I had to dig in deeper to get where I want to be, and here I am"

Pretty much my situation.

I just finished 8 applications and included the "blip" school from the past. Most are to traditional graduate programs, though one is related to quantitative finance. It isn't Baruch, though if it were I would PM Andy and let him know exactly who I am, lest I come across as sneaky

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Not sure why Dominic mentioned Baruch in the first place as this has nothing to do with any program in particular.
The quote I used is taken from CMU MSCF program's website. See here Application Process : Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon

And no need to PM Andy if you apply to Baruch as I'm not involved in anyway with their admission process.

I'm not interested in which programs any member here is applying to. The only thing I'm interested in is making sure they use our Tracker to share timeline with our members

 

[DominiConnor]

Bank vetting will not prevent a Madoff, we know this to be true because nearly all of the people who've done bad things have passed such vetting. I believe Mr Assange would get through...

One only has to look at the history of the various government security services to see that background checks are far from a guarantee of anything.

As it happens one of the directors of Kroll's background checking operation chose me as a godfather for their child, you can see that as good or bad.

As coolHarvard says standard background checks simply can't catch the sort of omission that ABrown is suggesting for the price they charge, unless it creates gaps between employment/education.

The process is very oriented towards gaps, because they can be spotted by the sort of people you can hire to work for that sort of money. The standard is to include a credit check, and they make some effort to validate your qualifications.
I don't believe that a determined person even without my background couldn't work out how to fudge it.

Kroll, like some other firms offers a deeper check for more senior or sensitive positions, and that is not cheap at all, comparable to recruitment fees.

One can of course get your transcript from a university, but they don't warrant that it is you, that's not their job.

I believe they still do a "media check" which is an almost wholly worthless action nowadays.
In the olden days (the 1990s) if you made the papers it was a strong signal either way.

Today google any name and you will find hundreds of people doing thousands of things, hard to tell which was "you". It can be done, I could do it, probably, but that's a lot of work.