<p>Recently, one of the so-deemed 'popular' girls in school befriended me. We'd always known each other as acquaintances but not really as friends, so I was pleasantly surprised. About two/three months after we started hanging out, she asked me to write her peer testimonial and recommendations for her. Keep in mind that we worked on the same community project together, of which I was the Vice Chairperson of, and she kind of hinted to me that she wanted me to write about how she took part in the leadership/just that she didn't really want to claim credit for stuff she did... so I thought I'd just help her out, since she did contribute for the project. I also added positive traits like how I thought she was friendly and a genuinely true friend.. and added stuff like how I thought that sincerity was underrated in this era to help support her case. All in all, it was a pretty good rec, since I did put a lot of effort into it.</p>
<p>After I passed her all her recs, she just stopped talking to me. Honestly. She didn't reply my phone messages, stopped picking up my calls and did little more than nod at me in school. I feel very very sad, and very depressed that I was so stupidly manipulated into thinking that she actually wanted to be my friend. My friends who know what happened say that they saw it coming - "she probably just befriended you since you're like the school paper's frequent writer". </p>
<p>I don't intend to sabotage her (though I'm definitely wondering how many Ivys she's going to get into; since she applied to eight Ivys, Stanford and MIT and has a great chance of getting in based on her scores 700+s). I don't believe in 'an eye for an eye' but just really wanted... no, needed to rant. Has anyone been manipulated into giving a really sincere testimonial before?</p>
<p>You've learned an important life lesson: some people are users. If you believe in karma, what goes around, comes around. Shrug it off and move on.</p>
<p>but id take the high road, and let it go. id also stop trying to be her friend because she isn't friendship material. in the end, you are still a gifted writer and far worse tragedies happen in life.</p>
<p>thanks so much for the input but then again, I guess my friend just really really really wanted to get into all the colleges she applied to so well... yes thanks a lot for listening to me rant!</p>
<p>hopefully no one ever ends up in a quagmire like me.</p>
<p>Interesting, sad, but not surprising. My question is, how did this girl know that you wouldn't turn around and send a supplementary letter to her schools telling them what she had done?</p>
<p>Now you know a little more about the vacuum of "being popular" and it's a very good lesson to learn early in life.</p>
<p>Look at the poor investment this girl made - she took advantage of one of her peers in order to get an inauthentic recommendation that probably will have little or no effect on her applications. In doing so, she revealed her flawed character to someone who has power, integrity and media access.</p>
<p>I agree that this sounds too much like sour grapes for an application. If it helps, write an essay about what happenend. You may get a good editorial out of it about the college application process, and what it can do to people.</p>
<p>I am not so sure this makes for a good essay topic. Vengeful or not, it's more about how awful someone else is, and what I learned from that (which is what?--don't trust others, I am gullible, people are mean, etc.?) I know that's really not what it would be about, but I think nevertheless that an essay about someone else's bad behavior is going to detract from an essay about you.</p>
<p>Heres an alternative perspective. A little harsh, but nonetheless... Why did she pick you to manipulate? Are you that gullible? Your friends saw through her, so why couldnt you? Learn to be more cynical of people and not get pushed around. If you even try to send this in as an essay topic, I would laugh at you. The only thing that crossed my mind when I read your post was that you recieve no respect from your peers. Suck it up and learn from your mistake. If you want revenge, send in an additional rec, but that's as far as you should go.</p>