<p>Share some of your experiences on what you see students do when they apply to college that really ******* screws them over or makes them think “Why in the world did I do that?”</p>
<p>Just thought i’d shake things up a bit. This thread can be very informative to a lot of people who look for so many advantages that they overlook the little things, or just make really big, stupid mistakes.</p>
<p>here are some samples.</p>
<li>Applying ED to several schools…and getting caught</li>
<li>Saying you’re one ethnicity when you’re not…and getting caught</li>
<li>Having a record of violent behavior (getting in a fight)</li>
<li>Having a teacher give you a rec. simply because you have a high grade in the class, not because the teacher actually likes you (i’ve seen this bite way too many people in the past)</li>
<li>Putting down something like National Honors Roll or Mensa on your app.</li>
<li>Having 34872942379487 extracurriculars with no real dedication in any of them.</li>
<li>Not taking any SAT IIs</li>
<li>Cheating…and getting caught</li>
</ol>
<p>This thread can either become really beneficial and insightful, or really goofy and outrageous followed by a bombardment of superlative expressions. Either way, I hope this thread survives a week :). Cheerio.</p>
<p>-Explaining on the essay how their school is a safety and that you would probably not consider them, but is applying because your rich dad can afford the extra 70 dollars for application. </p>
<p>-Showing on a Yale app how it is obviously second best to Harvard. </p>
<p>-Showing on a Harvard app how it got shafted by Princeton in the rankings. </p>
<p>-Showing on a Princeton app why it is still number three in HYP, despite the rankings.</p>
<p>-Writing on a Stanford app why their school is your favorite IVY.</p>
<p>(1) Having an essay that tells everybody at Princeton how you donated a kidney to your grandmother and then them finding out this wasn't true.</p>
<p>(2) Committing plagiarism on your essays to Harvard, and then drawing attention to yourself by suing your high school because you weren't the only valedictorian they chose, even though you were home schooled for most of your courses.</p>
<p>P.S. Both of the above are true cases that resulted in accepted students having their acceptances revoked.</p>
<p>(3) Being accepted to a great school and then "taking it easy" your final semester of high school--getting mostly "C"s.</p>
<p>UCLA and Univ of Washington both dropped about 70 accepted students last year for having done exactly this.</p>
<p>And the most common--misspelling the school's name. It's spelled Berkeley. (Wish I had a dime for everyone that got it wrong on this site, but said they were going to apply there.)</p>
<p>and I think the original poster meant that adding ridiculous academic acheivements would decrease your chances. especially if you don't have the academic record behind it.</p>
<p>Forgot to mention putting "Who's Who of High School Students" on your application. It falls in the same category with the National Honors Society (see posts above for the explanation).</p>
<p>And let me mention an interesting story. I knew a guy who put on his application to college how proud he was that when his high school objected to him using the high school's computer system to run a home business, he had the "initiative" to get his two attorney parents to sue the school on his behalf and they won the case--and got the high school to pay him money to cover the legal fees. </p>
<p>Needless to say, he was rejected at every college he originally applied to. Once he figured out how stupid that was, he reapplied to some different, but equivalent, schools after taking a gap year, left off that comment, and was accepted at all of them.</p>