We’re reblahgging this post from the ‘snarchives because unfortunately this topic has come up, and it kinda makes us sad that people feel this way, and also… yeah. Tough topic here with many dimensions. “I feel like I need to do the same or I won’t have a chance.” Sigh. Premium content starts here……
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Pru says
Someone’s in a mood today 🙂
On a more serious note, you touched a chord. I do know people who have lied their way into B school. It bothered me a lot when I was doing my research. But once I got down to analyzing my profile and digging out my ‘stories’ I stopped worrying about these guys. Not that my profile is perfect or anything, it’s just that I’ll sleep better at night knowing my conscience is clear and it’s ME they’ll see in the app, not some stuffed shirt.
vanishingnerd says
Indeed an important aspect of applications where I kept wondering abt selected candidates denoting their work exp in a family business and no-name (non-existant) NGOs to bridge their gaps and/or extend the work ex.
vanishingnerd says
That said, I even know some MBAs who started a “startup” just to get into a business school.
Makes me sad, everytime I look at their PostMba profiles.
essaysnark says
Yeah, we’ve seen a surprising number of candidates who’ve started nonprofits… but when you dig into them, there’s frequently no ‘there’ there. It’s just this thing that they’ve got at the bottom of the resume. There’s no impressive stories for them to tell, no evidence of real impact, nothing of substance. We don’t see the better bschools falling for that; the adcoms tend to examine the facts a little more closely.
ChilliBox12 says
I feel the best way to support the NGO fact is have a recommendation from someone who worked besides you or was auditing or supervising you. I am pretty sure if you start an NGO you have to get a 501(C)
essaysnark says
@Chillibox12 – yes in the US, it’s pretty complicated to set up a nonprofit corp with official tax-exempt status from the IRS – you would need to get the 501(c)(3) status. The examples we mentioned are actually overseas applicants. No idea what the rules are elsewhere on that. Agreed that a recommendation from that part of your life would be useful to show how ‘real’ it was, however in most cases, the BSer wasn’t planning on doing something in the same area with their future career and if not, it may not be strategic to use a recommender in that way.
Separately to all: We’ve been reflecting on this more and actually we are sorta hedging now… Lying on an app, per the post above, is lame and we detest it. But taking action to change your profile so that you’re more attractive is always a smart thing to do. If you go start a startup, or a nonprofit, as a way to boost the profile – that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and it’s not really “lying.” It’s perhaps not very sincere – your motives are off – but it’s TAKING ACTION. And that’s something we can always support.
So the examples being discussed here in the comments may be in a (slightly) different category than what we were ranting against in the post.
If you put in WORK to change the elements of your profile, you’re going to LEARN STUFF. Even if it’s just forming a corporation on paper and you don’t intend to do anything with it… In the U.S., just getting that part set up can be challenging!! If it’s a complete fraud and there’s nothing behind it, it’s just an idea or a claim of a startup – then yeah, it sucks and it’s bad ju-ju. But if it’s a real effort to get something going… We kinda appreciate that.
It’s more effort than we see some people making! (Not people around here of course – you guys are rockstars!)