Basically the title. How will they figure out if I placed 3rd in a competition and not 2nd?, for example.
I am not encouraging anyone to try this, I’m just curious. If they do find out you are lying ur admission will most likely be rescinded.
If it’s a national competition, there’s this thing called the internet they can check to verify it. If it’s not important enough to verify, then in my opinion it’s not important enough to affect their decision. Yes, if you lie they can rescind your acceptance, make you repay grants, or revoke your degree.
And the person that you are trying to steal from may also be an applicant.
If a certain EC is what tips you into the accepted pile the college will verify it.
If your acceptance is rescinded, it won’t be because they wouldn’t have accepted you based on your real credentials, it will be because of lack of character. If something is important enough to weight heavily in their decision, they will verify.
You need to try first to see how it works.
Many people get away with chronically lying for many years. They start with false awards, and false resumes, and move on to false claims of credentials, false tax returns, and lying under oath. I personally know two people who claimed false Ph.D.'s in psychology. One was a practicing clinician. He went to prison. Some get away with it forever. And some see everything crash down. They lose their reputation, their house, their business, their families.
Here’s the thing – In this day of big data, you better be an excellent hacker if you want to go down this liar’s alley. Because some day you will annoy someone, or cheat someone, or jilt someone, and that person will get upset and do some digging. And once they find out things you have been lying about, they will report it to your employer, college, or even the IRS or the police. So, if you are going to cheat, make sure you are adept enough to hack into the relevant databases and change your data.
If they find out you lied 5 years later, after you graduate, they can nullify your degree and sue you for your financial aid because you were admitted under false pretenses
Even local competitions can be Googled. Occasionally colleges call GCs to talk about applicants, so it could come up in that conversation. And if you are a chronic liar, your recommenders may very well know it as well —that likely won’t go well for you.
Anyone can check & verify awards on the internet. Whether you came in second or third probably would not be considered a material factor in a school’s decision unless, for example, only the top two finishers in a particular competition were assured of automatic admission on full scholarship to a certain school. But even then, the school’s negligence for not verifying would probably diminish any possible liability on your behalf.
If colleges & universities suspect that an applicant intentionally lied, then admission will be denied or rescinded if caught in a timely manner.
Recently a graduate of an elite boarding school explained away poor first year grades by intentionally misrepresenting an undiagnosed learning disorder. That person was not admitted to any college or university.
It’s probably a simple matter for the people who run this site to know your real name. And they know you’re asking this question. It’s not that hard to find out just about anything about anybody on the internet. You’d be an idiot to lie.
Not too long ago there was a student who wasn’t happy with their private school record so their family pretended they homeschooled and created their own records. The student was accepted to a school and moved into the dorm. I think a chance mention of a social media post by someone the student knew to someone connected with the school proved to be their undoing. The student was expelled immediately.
Can you live with that on your conscious? You may get the bragging rights when you get in to that school but deep down you will always know what you did. It is not worth it.
Two posters have said degrees can be recinded, for lying on an app, and I do NOT doubt that. I have not, however, heard of that actually happening. Can someone please provide a link reporting such a case?
I don’t know of anyone who lied about winning any important competitions, however in our district I know that students start clubs so that they can put president of something on their resume. It isn’t a lie, but its probably useless. Unless you are actually class president or editor of the school newspaper, I doubt schools care very much. They also know the difference between president of the debate team and president of the pretty flower club. The problem that many students have is that there are so many spaces on the common app you feel you need to fill in and then there is a whole separate category for awards. Of course students feel bad when they have nothing to write. Its perfectly plausible for a great student not to have been lucky enough to win a lot of awards. But those blank spaces make you feel inadequate.
In any case, I would much rather my kids went to colleges that actually wanted THEM for the people they really are.
As a fan of The Americans, I can’t resist listing this one (quoted from a US News article) “In July 2010, Harvard University stripped Russian spy Andrey Bezrukov—who had attended Harvard under the name Donald H. Heathfield—of his graduate degree in public administration. “The Kennedy School usually severs its relationship with a student when it is discovered that the individual’s application contains inaccuracies,” the Harvard Crimson reported.”
https://poetsandquants.com/2014/03/05/stanford-takes-away-an-mba-degree/
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-04-18/news/9504180075_1_gina-grant-yale-harvard
https://ithacavoice.com/2014/09/cornell-expels-gives-100000-bill-student-application-dispute/
This woman fooled quite a few colleges including Cornell, Carnegie Mellon and Indiana University.
On the other side of the fence, even people working in admissions get caught lying on resumes: