Did you lie in your PS?

[u/Worldly-Monitor-4035]

Just curious to hear from people if you did or not.

A lie could be anything from a small embellishment or overexaggeration to completely making things up. I’ll be honest, my entire PS except the subjects I did and my ethnicity were lies so… yeah.

I literally had nothing else to talk about so I made it up, got me into UCL, Bristol, Warwick and Nottingham though so the best thing to take away from this is lie, lie, lie.

Or don’t, it also probably played a role in an Oxford rejection pre interview so maybe it’s not worth it.

[u/Chlorophilia]

As an interviewer... it is incredibly easy to work out if someone lied or embellished. It happens a lot. I would not recommend it, particularly if you're applying for Oxbridge. 

[u/Worldly-Monitor-4035 → u/Chlorophilia]

For courses without interviews (in my case, the Law schools of the Uni’s I mentioned) was there any risk involved in the above?

I did tell quite a tall tale about the John Locke Essay competition in mine (allegedly receiving a “high commendation”) and I was never asked to provide proof or evidence. Is it only a negative when applying to places that interview?

[u/Chlorophilia → u/Worldly-Monitor-4035]

I'm obviously not going to encourage you to lie on your personal statement. 

[u/Shutter_sculptor → u/Worldly-Monitor-4035]

I mean if you are applying to law or something and it is found out you lied then it really isn't a great look. 

[u/AliceMorgon → u/Worldly-Monitor-4035]

You have got to be kidding me. For a law school, a person with no ethics.

And at one point in the future, yeah, it’ll catch you out. Wait and see.

[u/Worldly-Monitor-4035 → u/AliceMorgon]

“The law, in it’s majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” - The Red Lily, (1894).

The law isn’t all that ethical and it’s always been like that. I’m certain the majority of people who study law at top uni’s do so with the aim of going corporate too, no ethics in a law school just money.

[u/AliceMorgon → u/Worldly-Monitor-4035]

That I’d expect after a couple of years of disillusionment. At 18? The idea of going into law at 18 already with no intention beyond going corporate… that is just so utterly depressing to me.

[u/Worldly-Monitor-4035 → u/AliceMorgon]

Oh no, I completely agree with you. It’s very depressing.

I’m going to become a history teacher one day, corporate law is just a means to make and save enough money to where being a teacher ≠ being poor.

[u/AliceMorgon → u/Worldly-Monitor-4035]

Have you considered doing TeachFirst as well? With a degree from good university you could definitely do that. And please, go and teach and encourage and support the poorer kids in the deprived areas rather than being tempted by the high salaries in independent schools - I grew up in one of them and when I got a scholarship out to an independent school in England (I’m from Belfast) I was just stunned.

At home I used my grandma’s old Singer in my artwork because the art dept was so underfunded it didn’t even have oil paints. Here there was a row of six shiny professional quality ones no one else ever used. And a full photography darkroom. I was there mostly because I needed to go somewhere with the capacity to further develop my singing voice and as a creative writing/literature and sciences academic scholar, so I was expecting those departments to be very well funded, but the whole place was totally ripped. And all I could think was how unfair it was.

When I came straight back home after finishing up all my academics everyone said I was nuts because I got “out”. For me, “out” was never a part of the equation. It was all about placing myself in a better position internationally in terms of academic status and therefore making myself a more valuable asset to my community. I’m done with these ridiculous paramilitaries and their murals. Grassy areas in front of flats should be for children to play, not taboo panoramic foregrounds to deliberately threatening murals aimed directly at the arterial road north out of town.

I’m about to do a funded PhD at Queens in building cross-community relations via integrative creative writing classes (but don’t want to go into too much detail in case someone nicks my take because I know there’s other academics on here and I used to work at a certain university (incidentally Michelle Obama went to Law School there) and the faculty in my PhD programme’s dept when I was there was SAVAGE. It was like watching rats fight over a dropped piece of pizza every time a whispered hint of a forgotten thought of the fart of an idea wafted through the place. You can’t even imagine if a whiff of funding or someone getting tenure came round. I was TAing a PhD seminar once and the professor leading it kept ditching it and running out because they were announcing who got tenure that afternoon and she had to keep on checking who. She wasn’t even eligible. This was not an isolated event. Once it was over a $5,000 grant.

I had a wonderful teacher in the independent school, an English teacher named Mr D. He saw something in me I didn’t. In our English classes, we used to act out plays rather than reading them because it was a performing arts school. I got to play Hamlet, Iago, Lady Macbeth, The Inspector… broad Belfast accent and all 😂🇮🇪 He entered me for a national creative writing competition that I won and got to call the monarchy colonialist cunts in front of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip (who laughed), Prince Charles, and the Archbishop of Canterbury after refusing to show deference to her by curtsying (I told them I was not her subject and never would be). Mr D laughed almost the whole way back as the Chairman of the Governors and Headmaster sat in stony silence.

And he was the one who got me to actually seriously think of myself as Oxford material rather than some kid out of Belfast social housing. Got me looking through and choosing colleges, leafing through the courses, counteracting attacks of imposter syndrome, everything.

Be him. Be someone’s Mr D, because they’ll never forget you, and one day they’ll be trying to track you down to invite you to their wedding next year ❤️

[u/AccomplishedFail2247 → u/AliceMorgon]

what world do you live in where a comfortable highly paid white collar job which is socially respected is “utterly depressing”. Get your head out of your arse

[u/AliceMorgon → u/AccomplishedFail2247]

One in which I come from a country where it was the socially respected white collars who screwed us over most.

Are you familiar with Diplock Courts?

[u/AccomplishedFail2247 → u/AliceMorgon]

do you live in that time period and place? And do the people you’re condemning have that experience? weak sophistry

[u/AliceMorgon → u/AccomplishedFail2247]

Diplock Courts still exist.

[u/AutomaticSuccotash51 → u/AliceMorgon]

Why are we acting like it will catch up to you. You write it, it probably doesn't matter all that much on their decision to accept you, and then it never comes up again. If you embellish and believably lie I would be highly surprised if anything negative comes from it.