<p>I'll get right off the bat. As we all know, every year the college admission process gets more competitive and brutal. It gets to such an extent that students rise to previously unfathomable levels to gain a spot in prestigious universities such as Harvard. They, so enamored by the prospect of an Ivy-League university education, even start faking extracurricular activities. THIS is what concerns me. I have my own microcredit organisation. It has a valid certificate of registration from the Government of India and tons of other validation. Except I can't send this to colleges.</p>
<p>Now, another student I know is making up extracurriculars or rather exaggerating. For example, he says he has an NGO and is registered. We all, in the school, know its not. He says that it is very impactful. We know that he only made it for the sake of colleges. Yet, Harvard does not. Yet, Harvard will take him and me to be as part of the same strata. </p>
<p>I'll be honest. It does not really bother me. I do what I do because I love and I'm not going to let a college determine my passions or happiness. It simply isn't worth it. Yet, doesn't this represent a serious flaw in the admissions procedure? If Harvard simply relies on what YOU've told them, how can they be so trustful?</p>
<p>If you are smart, you don’t need Harvard to make you successful. Harvard admission is packed with a variety of bogus social agenda. It is a waste of time and energy to worry about what Harvard thinks of you. Last year there was a report of a former felon faking activities and credentials and getting into several elite schools, including Harvard and Stanford. That is an indictment of current admission process.</p>
<p>Underachiever, “indictment” is a bit strong, don’t you think? The standard of error-free decisions and an accurate cardinal ranking of applicants is just not realistic. At my company, we have many fewer applicants and much more time to vet them, and there are still problems. Which we have to solve later. We don’t treat every statement a candidate makes as a lie until proven true; who would want to work in such an environment? And the same for Harvard’s admissions committee.</p>
<p>That said, nocensure, hopefully the difference between you and your classmates comes through in the letters and the school report, both of which I understand to be surpassing important. Why can’t you tell colleges about your microcredit organization?</p>
<p>Harvard, or any other college, has no way to vet each application for acuracy or integrety on their own. Each applicant was asked to sign the honor code which stated clearly that a fraulent application would lead to severe punishments (rescinding acception or expusion). So if you knew someone is committing fraud, you should raise the issue with the college counsilor at your school or contact the college where the fraudulent application has been sent to.</p>
<p>Because little awards and activities don’t make enough impact on your application that one made up accomplishment can do you any good. Those that do have the potential to make a difference can be easily looked up, at least here in the U.S.
International admissions of course is much trickier.</p>
<p>It’s so entertaining how often I used to catch posters on CC who pose themselves as high school juniors, while also claiming to have awards that are only only to seniors. You would think that people are smarter than that :rolleyes:</p>
<p>@imntwo- You are right. I believe my recommendations will talk about my organisation. I hardly think that teachers will support so blatant a lie in the recommendations of the other guy.</p>
<p>@Harvard parent: yes but if I actually reported him, I would completely ruin his career or atleast cast major doubts upon his future, an action that would make me guilty for a very long time. Even if he did get in, I will be happy that I ended up getting in because I love what I do.</p>
<p>XrCalico: Are you sure? Do you think that admission officers, having read thousands of apps and spending approximately 10 minutes on ech would go up to the computer and check. If someone days that he/she got a high score on AIME for instance, would they actually check or leave it under te pretense that no one would fake that. After all, you don’t have to send an official score report for that do you?
And snow that you’ve mentioned it :D, what about internationals?</p>
<p>It helps that an application has to include information from multiple sources (applicant, HG counselor, test service), but it’s close to impossible for college admissions officers to verify everything on an application. </p>
<p>If someone lies on their application and the fake achievement is big enough to make a real difference in admissions, it can be easily exposed as a lie. But if the fake achievement is small enough to escape scrutiny then it’s very probably not significant enough to provide an admissions boost.</p>
<p>In the case of Wheeler, he is an outright fraught from top to bottom, and he was not caught by Harvard or other school he applied to. There could be many other fraud applications getting away. A fraud doesn’t have to be big to be effective. All it needs is to fit Harvard’s social and political agenda in admission. A small effective lie can easily tip an application from waitlist to admit.</p>
<p>All in all, the admission process is non-merit based, and can be easily manipulated and frauded. In fact, they want to keep it this way so that the admission process can accommodate Harvard administrator’s priority and agenda.</p>
<p>Coureur, I don’t think your statement is entirely accurate. Sure, they can check who made USABO, AIME, Intel, Siemens, etc. What if the candidate is international? If we take the example of the NGO, they’re not going to exactly scout throughout India and look for target witnesses that the NGO helped. If for example, a person also says that the NGO has raised a $100,000, which would be a significant achievement at this age, they can’t file through Indian tax records can they? So, I don’t think that this “if its big enough, it can be found” argument is entirely germane.</p>
<p>nocensure, you ought not concern yourself with speculation about any flaws in any part of Harvard Admissions process. They have been admitting students for a very long timefor almost 400 years–and I can assure you they know what they are doing. If I were you, I would focus your time and effort on your own life rather than worrying about what someone else might say or Harvard Admissions vetting methodology.</p>
<p>The apps that the admission office only spends ten minutes on are going to the rejection pile anyway, so it doesn’t matter. Admitted students’ applications generally go through multiple rounds of scrutiny, first by the regional adcom then in the committee as a whole. I’m sure in the effort to come to a consensus on who to admit/reject, they look at each applicant has done very closely.</p>
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<p>International admission is much trickier because other countries’ educational systems are different, often with a lot of loopholes. If you’re concerned about your friend faking his extracurricular activity, then you’re way off, worrying about completely the wrong thing. </p>
<p>I’ve been told by an international student who stayed with us briefly over the summer that in his home country, if you have the money, you can easily pay to go to a high school that specializes in getting kids into colleges overseas. What happens is, the school will gladly make up a whole transcript for you with all A grades, so you don’t have to worry about school grades and can focus on prepping for standardized tests. Almost all of his extracurriculars were faked. His awards? They didn’t exist until his father’s company created the positions for him. Now isn’t that even more worrying </p>
<p>Because top schools in the U.S. take so few international kids from each country (10? 20 at the most?), they can afford to be selective and pass over anyone they have doubts about. It’s not unusual for international admits to top schools to have international level recognitions, which can easily be verified.</p>
<p>Remember, even if one gets admitted, the student will be there for years and truth invariably comes out and the risk is not worth it. So quit bothering about everything else and follow your passion. You will be fine , Harvard or not.</p>
<p>Probably not, but I’ll bet there is at least one person in the Harvard admissions office who knows how to use Google. It took me about 15 seconds to find this extensive list of NGOs in India. </p>
<p>If the guy’s claimed NGO can’t be found here or anywhere else on-line, it’s probably time to ask a few probing questions of our intrepid applicant.</p>
<p>Well, I guess what it all boils down to is not to worry about others and simply love what you do. So, thanks for the information guys, it was helpful. :)</p>
<p>Once I read, I don’t remember where, schools like MIT, Harvard and similarly highly selective schools rejecting stellar applicants.</p>
<p>Like one had built a nuclear reactor and got rejected from MIT
Another, had 2400, Olympiad math or Intel finalist and Harvard screwed him…</p>
<p>So, what can one fake that will guarantee admission anyway? perhaps, landing on the moon, Nobel prize or may be inventing a fourth dimension should do. Or will it?</p>
<p>Let’s don’t forget that college admission is rather an art than science - and the admission officers do have some sort of instincts based on their past experience (including follow-up data of each year’s admits). It’ll never be 100%, but should be much much better than 50/50 or random pickups as many on CC suggested/guessed. They do choose. That’s part of the reason why H (and other highly selective schools) has such a high graduation rate. I myself have seen quite a number of “local cases” and been on CC long enough trying to predict certain “chance me” possibilities (only based on the very limited info as posted) in the past a few years, and I’m happy to say the probability is far better than “not bad”. Just think about it - one doesn’t need to know everything about a composer or singer/musician to tell if his/her music is really good and original… And, what s/he self-claimed may not even relevant.</p>
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