KRoll background check

The only reason a school will probably revoke admission is if they can prove that an applicant lied on the application, i.e. if they call someone up and find out you didn't actually work there or didn't volunteer there. They won't revoke an admission because they can't verify something - I recommend not basing the application details on what will happen in the background check - as long as you don't make up stuff you should be fine!

They use https://www.theworknumber.com/ where possible (in my experience at least).

But really, with my own company and another nonprofit I'm involved with--we were functioning organizations for months, if not years, before incorporating.

So the dates for a startup would be impossible to verify IMO. And further, there are many small businesses that choose not to incorporate at all or choose another legal structure all together.

Can anybody confirm whether or not Kroll verifies extra-curriculars like university clubs or volunteering at an NGO?

I know it varies depending on school but does anyone know of any school checking specifically for extracurriculars? Someone asked above but i'm still not clear about this. I have virtually no proof or evidence of at least 2 extra-curriculars and I am not sure if they can be confirmed.

Thanks

I talked with the assistant director of admissions at Fuqua regarding the Kroll background check. Of course I didn't come out and just straight ask her, but mentioned all the little things I still needed to do now that the school has admitted me into the program. She said that the background check is very basic, at least in Fuqua's case.

So Kroll will check your current work, your education history, any licenses/professional designations, one recommender, public records, credit history, and current salary (through contact with your company). Kroll will ask for the contact details to make these checks, your personal details so they can check your credit details, and your consent. The conversation with your company should literally take a couple minutes and just confirm what you’ve already reported. Finally, they charge you about $100 for the check. She pretty much came out and said it really was no big deal (almost exactly what she said).

When you get down to it, for the small price you are paying, how much of a check do you really think they will do? They aren’t likely to sic some investigative guru on your one little case when they have countless thousands to process. So unless you lied outright on your application, it's all good.

No idea, and like you said a lot of that stuff would be near impossible to verify--forget about the difficulty of proving you were in an ECA, think about all the other stuff like hours per week, offices held, number of people in the club, etc. My guess is that Kroll will take a cursory look into anything that sounds a little too incredible, but beyond that they don't have the time or manpower to go further. Or if they are unable to verify something they wanted to check on, they'll contact you and ask for contact information for someone who can verify it--in my case I had to provide an alternate phone number for a part-time employer.

I still stand by my initial assertion from about 150 posts back--unless you were deliberately misleading in some way, you've got nothing to worry about on the background check. They're not going to get hung up on exact salaries or dates or bonuses or number of direct-reports.

Hi, I thought I should chime in here.

Kroll is divided into various divisions and they each manage differing levels of what can broadly be described as "investigations." They range from background checks for entry-level hires at corporations, to client on-boarding reviews (done by compliance officers) at multinationals, to very tailored special-situation investigations where their staff are hired out at very high rates (big law/MC rates, something like $800 an hour).

Business schools want to make sure they haven't admitted a fraud. Outright frauds are not terribly difficult to uncover when you've committed to cooperating fully with the process (ie. you agree to disclose information and authorize Kroll to carry out checks) and that's what schools are looking out for. Picture yourself as the admissions officer, and picture what kind of violation or contradiction would make them seriously question their decision to admit you. Don't worry unless you have something as serious as that (ie. your recommender doesn't exist, your company of 25 staff that you founded doesn't exist, etc).

what about missing information? say you did not report a masters program enrollment or something... don't think Kroll could find it. although, how would a school respond to that? imagine the rest of the app. is 100% correct and you just did not report one masters which you had for completely irrelevant reasons- I have seen instances (not in the US) where people do this for military or earning state grants etc. wonder if a top school takes action against some enrolled student for something like that-

I have job exp. in a nonprofit organization in a developing country. We didn't even have a website. How are they going to perform a background check?

I also don't want my employer to know I am leaving. I just don't have the courage to do tell them that, bec they might fire me on the spot. I am the Executive Assistant of the CEO here, and I told my boss I will just go to night school

Well, aside from any ethical implications of lying to your boss you don't have to worry. Schools don't waste the time/money on the Kroll check until after you're already admitted, so no one at your company will know that you've applied until you've accepted an admissions offer somewhere. Once you're admitted you don't really have much to worry about other than trying not to burn bridges with your company.

Don't worry about them finding the information on your nonprofit--if they can't find what they need, they'll ask you for assistance in contacting someone to confirm your employment there.

Maybe someone can chime in. I'm an entrepreneur and here's my concern:

I launched a startup in college and ran it full-time for about 4 months post college. At that time I didn't have enough money coming in so I jumped at the opportunity to take on a full-time job and make my startup more of a side project. It's 2 years later and I'm still at the same full-time job and still running my startup on the side.

So here's where it gets tricky. All of my applications ask how many years of WE I'll have upon enrollment. My first 4 months of full-time WE post college were with my startup but I'm afraid to count these months because I cannot think of any way to verify this as full-time work. I was loosing money, I don't have any check stubs, and we didn't incorporate until early last year. I really can't think of any way to prove I was working full-time until I switched over to the other job 4 months out of undergrad and started getting a weekly paycheck.

So I'm tempted to leave out those 4 months of WE on my application so that I don't get in a rough spot with Kroll later on down the road. But at the same time, I have an additional 4 months of legitimate WE that I'd really like to list on the application--at the very least this will push me closer to these schools' WE years mean.

Does anyone have advice?

I would just include those 4 months in your work experience if you think it will add value to your application. You can always explain it in the optional essay, job description/duties section of the application, or just wait and see if it gets flagged in a background check. I can't imagine that adcoms wouldn't be understanding about that...

For Duke what else do they check?
Do they check Extra Curricular, Awards, Base Pay, Bonus?

The check is about as basic as it gets. You get an email with a link. From that link, you fill out some information as well as consent for them to do the background check. They will check the particulars like credit history, call your HR, and also might call the people that recommended you. As I said before, it really isn't that big a deal. They do generally talk with your work so yes, they will check your pay/bonus and such as you already gave them permission to do so when you filled out the form. Unless you outright lied on your form, I don't see the big deal about the background check.

Good luck with everything. It really is an awesome school and I love the Duke MBA program.

I have absolutely no idea why this would cause any sort of red flag. First of all, they are very unlikely to go into that depth beyond determining the existence of said company. As it has existed for a few years, what is the issue? In addition, if there are any questions at all, the Kroll administrator for your check will talk with you if any issues come up. You have the legal documents to support your position. Remember, it isn't like the school wants to ding you or red flag you. This is also true of the background check company. The more of an issue that comes up, the bigger the workload it creates for them. Unfortunately, according to some recent articles on background companies, unless you are hiding a dirty past or outright lie about something bonehead-stupid, you are likely quite safe.

Two questions:

1 - When do these background checks take place? When you get admitted? Or only once you decide to matriculate/ pay your deposit?

2 - Two of the 3 employers on my resume have gone belly up, so… no HR department to call and verity info (and also I had to estimate/ make an educated guess in some sections of my application because I had nobody to verify them with). Should I be concerned? How will they go about checking this stuff?