Fraud Squad

Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal published a piece on Cal Tech’s “fraud squad,” a group of four professionals who review admitted students’ credentials to confirm they’re valid. The squad is looking for fabricated extracurriculars, awards, and research, but the WSJ article also mentions concerns about AI use for essays. (I’ll link to the article here, but you’ll need to create a free, temporary account to read the piece.)

I heard an excellent conversation about this topic on the Your College Bound Kid podcast (episode 665), a discussion I’d recommend hearing. Where I differ slightly is that I would suggest avoiding AI even for brainstorming a personal statement. It’s just too easy to go from there to introducing language that is not authentic to the candidate.

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About Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Michelle Finkel

Dr. Finkel is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Medical School. On completing her residency at Harvard, she was asked to stay on as faculty at Harvard Medical School and spent five years teaching at the world-renowned Massachusetts General Hospital. She was appointed to the Assistant Residency Director position for the Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency where she reviewed countless applications, personal statements and resumes. Read more

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Listen to Dr. Finkel’s interview on The Visible Voices podcast: 

 

Listen to Dr. Finkel’s interview on the White Coat Investor podcast:

Listen to Dr. Finkel’s interview on the FeminEm podcast: