<p>I found out a few students at my school decided to forge their counselor recommendation letters to the top Ivey leagues. Should I tell on them. </p>
<p>On one hand, I feel pretty mad because these people are cheating on something I worked my whole life to get. On the other hand, I don’t really want to ruin someone else’s lives.</p>
<p>As long as you have proof, yes. An idiot who decides to forge any part of an application (and why forge something so insignificant as a counselor rec…) doesn’t deserve to go to a good school.</p>
<p>Of course you should tell on them. Let the GCs or the principal know. Do NOT do this anonymously or you won’t be believed. </p>
<p>And you will not be ruining their lives. They are ruining their own lives. </p>
<p>The longer this goes on, the worse it will be for your school – including for you. Other students will follow in their footsteps, and if this kind of fraud goes on for a long while before being discovered, people will assume all students and alum of the school – including you – got into college by fraudulent means. </p>
<p>If you don’t tell, those students’ actions will end up ruining your life.</p>
<p>“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”–Edmund Burke</p>
<p>If you don’t tell on them, it’s not only unfair to you, but it’s unfair to everyone who worked hard their whole lives too. </p>
<p>Also, if you don’t tell on them now, and colleges found out later after they submitted their applications, then your school will get a bad name and future applicants from your school might be looked down upon.</p>
<p>Who would I rather see get in, kids with fake recs or a kid who can’t spell Ivy? It’s a toughie.</p>
<p>I’d rather see someone who can’t spell Ivy get in, rather than a dishonest cheat. (How do you know the OP didn’t make a typo, though?) Seriously, the smart, sneaky kinds are the worst.</p>
<p>I really hope you turn them in.</p>
<p>They can’t get their hands on official school letterhead anyway, unless the recs are online the schools will know</p>
<p>"They can’t get their hands on official school letterhead anyway, "</p>
<p>They can forge letterhead or they may have copies of the school letterhead. When I was an officer in my sons’ school’s parent group, with the school’s permission, I had copies of the school letterhead at home. I used the letterhead on fundraising letters and communications that I sent to parents.</p>
<p>I think you should turn them in. They’re sabotaging the system against the rest of us, and for you, if they do end up getting in and you don’t. Your honest life or their cheating lives?</p>
<p>Don’t do anything. Wait until they get caught and get their degrees rescinded. This is a big deal.</p>
<p>I would confront them about it and threaten them.</p>
<p>I guess I was the only one who thought that you should not say anything and forge your own.</p>
<p>Idk…ya, its horrible what they are doing, but at the same time I don’t know if its your place to rat them out. If it was me, I probably wouldn’t tell anyone just because i wouldnt want to start a big conflict. Let them get caugth as a result of their own stupidity.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t do that; it’s a little too vindictive and it might backfire. If you wait til they graduate 4 years later, it might be satisfying to have them waste all that time and money at Harvard only to lose their degrees but you run the risk of being suspected if you waited 4 years to report this. Plus you might forget. </p>
<p>If you are going to do anything, you should do it now and not try to position anything or take advantage of the situation.</p>
<p>Eventually, they will be caught, and better sooner than later because if this goes on too long, all of the students and alum of the high school will get a reputation as being unethical. And in many cases that will be well deserved even for students who didn’t forge reccs because if students knew about the forgeries, but didn’t turn the perps in, then those students were unethical, too.</p>
<p>The sooner those students are turned in, also the more likely this will remain something known only locally instead of something that the whole country – including admissions officers across the country – is aware of and connects with your school’s reputation.</p>
<p>You guys are all trying to make the world sound like a perfect place, if they are careful and lucky then there’s a good chance no one will find out, there are “gasp” people out there who have lied before and never been caught. The main thing is if they need to forge a counselor rec then it probably means they either aren’t doing that well in school or they are making the rec’s unbelievable, in which case can be easily verified for it’s “truthiness” :).</p>
<p>Who’s trying to make the world seem like a perfect place? Who said that people always get caught when they lie?</p>
<p>You’re asking people on CC how to deal with people… hahahaahahahahhahahaa. Anyways, you should contact their guidance counselors and ask to remain anonymous. See where that takes you.</p>