FAQ on background check for admittees - 工管

Dear MBA admittees,

First of all, congratulations on getting into schools! This is definitely the
time to enjoy yourselves and relax after the hard work you put into your
applications has paid off!

Several of my clients have told me that many admittees are starting to get
anxious about the upcoming background checks. So, I want
to take this opportunity to give you the basics of what a background check is,
hopefully to relieve your anxiety.

In short, the schools are not out to "get" you - in fact, they really have no
incentive to rescind offers of admission because doing so actually would cause
a lot of administrative headaches. Unless a discrepancy is egregious and is
clearly a lie (which, unfortunately, does happen), there really is nothing to
worry about.

Many schools have hired an outside firm called Re Vera Services to conduct
their background checks this year. Previously, many schools had used a larger
firm called Kroll, but in this current down economic environment, even the
admissions offices at top schools are trying to cut their expenditures, which
is a main reason they are using Re Vera, a much smaller and cheaper firm than
Kroll. So, the switch from Kroll to Re Vera is mainly a budget issue for the
schools.

In terms of what Re Vera (and other companies conducting background checks)
will check for, the main items are:

-employment history (titles, dates, and salaries)
-rec letters (calls with recommenders to make sure that they really were
your recommenders)
-academic history (making sure that you really do have the degrees and
transcripts that you claimed)
-test scores

While the academic and test score checks are fairly easy and straightforward,
obviously it may not be as easy for a Re Vera to check your employment-related
information in Taiwan. This is why many of you have been asked to provide
contact information for people at the companies where you've worked. But,
again, this is really no big deal - all Re Vera is trying to do is verify very
standard information, and even if there is a discrepancy, you will be given
plenty of opportunities to explain and/or provide supporting evidence. For
example, one of my Wharton admittees last year was notified that her company's
HR department reported a different salary than the one she stated in her
Wharton application. So, she provided her tax return to show that she really
did earn the money that she reported on her application, and this was enough
to satisfy Wharton. It turns out it was just a case of her company
having a different way of reporting her salaries (e.g., split between bonus
and base compensation). Again, this example is to illustrate that, as long as
you can show legitimate reasons for what you stated in your application, the
schools are not going to pick on minor discrepancies. Even if you
accidently misreported, say, your employment date or your salary by a little
bit, the schools will not care, as they realize that minor, honest mistakes
do happen all the time.

Hope this helps! Again, please do not worry about background checks! Instead,
enjoy your well-deserved time off and do something fun!

Best,
Kevin
[email protected]

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Kevin Chen
Partner/Senior Admissions counselor, Clear Admit LLC (www.clearadmit.com)
Master degrees: Stanford Graduate School of Business; Harvard Kennedy School
of Government
Bachelor degree: Princeton University
Previous work experiences: Reuters; McKinsey; NBA




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