If not lying, then “heavily embellishing” their participation in, for example, a club that was attended twice.
I assume personal integrity? But Commonapp doesn’t verify, so I’m thinking that people probably supplement their application with false information all the time.
Personally, I’ve heard of people claiming to be team captains and have leadership positions when its known very well they haven’t. Thoughts?
If a certain EC is what will tip you into the accepted pile a college may verify it. It would likely be something that could be verified in the media. Below the top 40 EC’s are not a major factor anyway.
It does come down to personal integrity and ethics. The trouble with lying, is that you then need another lie to cover the first lie and on and on. While some may get away with it, others eventually get found out by their actual actions later. Try not to worry about what others are doing, act with integrity and ethics yourself.
Also the fear of what colleges can do when/if they find out, maybe? Rejection, rescinding, loss of degree, demand for financial aid to be repaid…
@TomSrOfBoston Interesting! I wonder how often that tip does happen.
@NorthernMom61 It’s definitely frustrating when you start to overthink it!
You have to understand that in most cases participation in one EC or another is not going to make or break an application. Also, for some really impressive EC, the school will most likely expect that the GC or a teacher will mention it. If they don’t, that might be reason for a followup to the GC for confirmation.
If the claimed achievement or award is at a high level (e.g. state or national level), it is often something that can be verified or disproved (e.g. won state championship in some sport or academic contest – may show up in news media or the sponsoring organization’s web site).
Exaggeration may not be caught but outright lying stands a decent chance of being caught if one is applying to some of the top schools. These schools tend to take admissions seriously and lots of the admissions officers have relationships with the school counselors where they can and will call and ask about candidates. The special things my kids did that weren’t well known we always made sure to mention to the counselor so that if they were ever asked about the counselor would know.
Sometimes colleges talk to GCs about applicants to get more info. Something like that could come out then, or the GC might find something fishy in what they are asked and will follow up.
For the most part, colleges would verify anything significant enough to change a student’s status from rejected to accepted. In theory, you can be expelled or have your degree revoked for lying on your application. Obviously this is very rare, but it’s not something to risk.
This is a function of HS kids overestimating the impact of their EC list. Lying that they were the Pres vs. Secretary of some club won’t be checked and they’ll get away with it clean. Why? Because no college on earth gives a rat’s behind about that datum point. In the time it took you to read “datum point” is the time that 99.985% of colleges will give to that EC “leadership” title.
Basically, if it’s large enough to matter, colleges can easily verify it. If not easily verifiable, it’s likely 100% discountable and forgettable.
I would be more worry about other types of dishonesty; e.g., having someone else taking SAT/ACT at an obscure oversea testing center, renting an apartment and using an address in North Dakota for college application purpose, paying someone to write a research paper for publication, etc.
At my daughter’s private high school, the college counselors review every student’s Common App before it is submitted, so the school verifies what is being listed. There was a huge blowup last year when a student was advised by an independent counselor to word their activities and honors in a way that the school counselors felt was misleading. They warned the kid and the parents that if they persisted in the misrepresentation, the high school would submit a clarification directly to each college.
My daughter graduated from Tufts. In high school, she was very involved in an athletic EC (not a college sport) and was ranked in the top 5 in the US. Tufts checked with the governing body of the sport to verify. The folks at the governing body told D’s coach about the call. Don’t know if this was routine or not.
Personal integrity - yes. And by watching this year’s Olympics - you might think you are just exaggerating, but people think you are lying.
What would be the benefit of that? Is geographic diversity really that much of a factor?
^ Not at most schools, and then the applicant would have to explain graduating from HS in NY.
Why doesn’t the NY kid just apply to college in North Dakota? ;
My kid’s biggest EC is not something her guidance counselor knows anything about. It’s a job. I suppose a college could call and verify dates of employment. I can’t imagine any would bother.
Regarding post #12, nothing would stop that applicant from editing the common app AFTER the guidance counselor saw it…so it’s possible that a student could have it reviewed so that it passed the “truth” test and then they could say something different on the version they submit to colleges.
The risk, of course (outside of the ethics of the situation!!)), is that lying on the application is grounds for having your admission rescinded or even being kicked out of school after enrolling, if your lies are uncovered. And, yes, even something as “minor” as lying about an extracurricular activity can get you thrown out of school! In graduate school one of my classmates was expelled after several months when it turned out he has misrepresented his participation on a college athletic team.