I am in the process of applying to graduate programs in Engineering (Data Science). While networking, some idiot told me how he faked his official transcripts changing his major entirely and boosting his GPA almost 100%! His rec letters and the rest of his application were legitimate. The admission committee was impressed by his overall application and accepted him into a very prestigious program at an Ivy League School. From what he says, he is doing quite well there… -_-
I do not understand how something like this goes unnoticed at the Graduate Level! Can someone please explain??
1 Like
Not without knowing how he did it, no. It is generally pretty hard to forge official transcripts - perhaps he knows someone dirty in the registrar’s office. Regardless, adcoms will not generally question someone’s official transcript without reason.
Do you know enough about him to report him to his current and/or future schools?
1 Like
There are a host of websites that will generate a fake transcript for the right price. Are the universities aware of these services? Is it illegal? In general, what steps does the admissions committee take to ensure that the applicant is actually legitimate, if any?
I will not report him because it is not my place to. I believe the fault lies on the admissions committee for not being thorough enough in their investigations.
1 Like
What makes you think this person is telling the truth about this any more than when people yak about other things?
Although, I have to say I am very interested in what the nature of a “100% boost”, is.
1.97 to 3.94?
2.00 to 4.00?
2.7 (UW) to 5.4 (UW)?
1 Like
Maybe he was pulling your leg, or over exaggerating. I find it hard to believe he is doing really well if he had a bad time of it in undergrad.
1 Like
He adjusted his GPA from 2.7 to 3.8. Ok so it’s is not 100%, I exaggerate when I am angry 
1 Like
I occasionally consider a standard deviation as being something on the order of what people think about when they say “100%”, so if you look at it that way, it might even be more!
1 Like
Generating the transcript is one thing, making it look like it came from the university is either mail fraud or else requires assistance from within that university’s registrar. There is “due diligence”, but it is impossible to make a system that is immune to cheating - sooner or later, the cheaters always find gaps they can exploit.
What are they supposed to do, hire a PI to check on everyone? And why is it not your place? You think this is important enough to complain about online but not important enough to actually fix? Fixing it should take no more effort than you have already expended here!
And remember that someday you might be stuck on a group assignment (or worse, sharing RA or TA duties) with someone like you describe - wouldn’t you want someone to report them before they got that far? Worse, you could find yourself edged out of admission by such a person - wouldn’t you have wanted that person justly eliminated?
There are hundreds of thousands of police in this country but we still have crime. If you witnessed a crime, would you turn your head because " you believe the fault lies with the police for not being thorough enough in their investigations?" Honor codes at universities include the students expressly because they could not catch every cheater even if every member of the staff made it their full time job to do so. So lend a hand.
1 Like
This actually sounds like it would be pretty easy to do. Many universities’ transcripts are not necessarily super fancy or difficult to duplicate, and if there are online programs that allow you to do that, generating one and sending it off wouldn’t be difficult. A lot of colleges will give you the transcripts to send rather than send them themselves. In undergrad, I was given transcripts in plain white envelopes to send - they didn’t have any college branding or anything.
Given the volume of applications they receive, graduate programs assume that most of their applicants are not lying and don’t have time to check on everything, unless there is something that seems suspicious or out of place (I read one story where a student who claimed he spoke Korean was called by a faculty member who spoke Korean, to verify that the student did indeed speak the language. He did.) Could you imagine if they had to verify the transcripts of each and every applicant to the program, from hundreds of colleges and universities across the world?
If it’s true (which I doubt) then he just managed to work the system. But if he’s smart he’ll keep his mouth shut about it, because degrees can definitely be yanked even after he’s done the work for them if the program finds out he lied to get into it.
1 Like