From cheating in courses to cheating on the (online) GRE to exaggerating PCE and volunteer hours, and people who do all the above and take up seats they did not work hard for.

My friend's employer actually told her that applicants lie so much about their PCE that it would be a disadvantage not to, and he lets all of his prePA employees apply with an extra 2k hours.

What irks me most is students who did not work at all during undergrad, thus having more time to focus on their gpa and other parts of their app, but give themselves years' worth of PCE because they have a family member who owns a clinic and can vouch for them.

Is this commonplace everywhere or am I just in a community/school where this is prominent and so normalized?

It's just so unfair and I'm so frustrated. I feel so proud of my hard work and results, only to see my classmates applying with similar stats as me without working for it. It feels like a slap in the face. And now I have to compete with these people over seats they do not deserve.

But when I try to think of what PA schools can do better to prevent this, I don't have great ideas. Requiring the PACAT makes the application process less accessible, and also unfair to people who have things like anxiety/adhd that will affect their performance. Requiring pay stubs is another option, but I think that could be a barrier as well?

Ugh. I can't be the only one who shares these sentiments.

Edit: Also, I understand we are all human at the end of the day and people may cheat here and there or exaggerate their hours. But people I know who learned almost nothing from their prereq courses because of the extent to which they cheated... Getting As in courses they do not even have the basic foundations of. Or having zero PCE but ending up in the thousands.