<p>I understand the importance of EC's on a college application for many schools. They are oftentimes a heavily weighted criteria. I've read many posts on CC, for example, where the student/parent lists the applicants long list of EC's - years and hours spent. But I always have a small, gnawing thought when I read these: are they honest? How does a college really know if a student isnt making it up? And if they can't tell, why would so much weight be placed on an admission criteria that is unverifiable? Am I missing something?</p>
<p>I know for my D, her school transcript includes all her EC’s at school. I’m not sure if community EC’s are ever verified.</p>
<p>I’m referring mainly to outside school activities</p>
<p>Certain programs, like our theatre and music programs are extremely well known. In fact, through them, kids also participate in award competitions thus “proving” their involvement. Other kids, who are in local theatre groups tend to continue their interest outside of school. Sometimes they’ve done summer productions, other times, kids have performed in major productions in NYC. </p>
<p>Eventually, they paint a picture of who they are through their ECs. What happens is this: kids create a general profile of themselves (is this a music kid? a theater kid? someone who works at a grocery store? a writer for the newspaper? etc.) and those ECs help explain who that student is, where are his/her passions.</p>
<p>Do colleges check? Those mundane things, like how many hours a week, are not likely to be verified, but I have heard they are checked.</p>
<p>It’s not that difficult to “guess” what’s inflated or not. The kids are in school from early morning to mid-afternoon and have weekends…only so many hours available so no, I doubt they check because there is no real need to check…it either passes the BS test or it doesn’t. Also true interests have a “way” of exposing themselves in those long lists as limabeans points out. A job, a sport and a club or two or special interest will totally consume most kids outside-of-school time and generally “show up” somewhere else in the app either in recommendations or essays or GC statement.</p>
<p>I remember several students last year who unapologetically said (on CC) that their ECs were inflated. Their stance was that this was necessary to get into an elite school – almost expected, in fact – and that eveyone else did it too. (Just like liars believe that everyone lies, I suppose.)</p>
<p>Admissions officers have been around the block a few times, and I’m sure they can spot inflation most of the time.</p>
<p>Stanford has started randomly “auditing” applications this year, from students they are admitting. (They admitted a completely fraudulent applicant last year, so I imagine that contributed to the decision to begin auditing.) I would imagine that EC’s are included in the auditing process. It’s too bad that it needs to be done; but if it needs to be done, then I am glad they are doing it.</p>
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<p>One would hope so, but Harvard did let in somebody in that was a fraud.</p>
<p>^They did indeed and the guy’s “accomplishments” were so unbelievable it’s hard to understand how the ad officers didn’t suspect anything. My older son’s main outside of school EC was corroborated by two letters of recommendation from the people he worked with. My younger son wrote his essays about his ECs. It would have been a pretty elaborate ruse to have made everything up. (Aside from the fact that his ECs weren’t earthshaking, just unusual and he wrote nicely about them.)</p>
<p>Most of the time, it doesn’t matter that the ECs are pumped up as I suspect they sometimes are on applications and resumes. Unless they cross a certain thresh hold, they aren’t going to be a make or break decision. Being a starter on the school team vs the benchwarmer doesn’t mean anything unless you are a recruited player, for instance, and if the student is of that caliber, more proof is needed than feeling out the EC portion of the app. So the awards that truly can mean something to a college in terms of admissions are easily verifiable. It might make you boil that a do nothing who just hung around student council for a couple of years has inflated his role to be a shaker and maker, but it really isn’t going to do much for him in terms of admissions.</p>
<p>I have heard that the UCs also do random audits of ECs, which I think is good because the UCs do not accept teacher or counselor recs, which would be likely verification sources for an applicant’s ECs. On the other hand, ECs are not as important for the UCs as they are for private elites, so as cpt points out, ECs won’t matter that much unless they are really outstanding.</p>
<p>“Most of the time, it doesn’t matter that the ECs are pumped up as I suspect they sometimes are on applications and resumes.”</p>
<p>Unless they care, as most employers do, about the honesty of their applicants.</p>
<p>That said, ECs can and are verified on both college applications and resumes. They show how much work a student can handle, whether the student takes an interest in anything in particular, and so on.</p>
<p>My oldest didn’t do any common applications in 2004/05 so in any area of ECs of the applicants, he never put hours. My middle did it this year. I have no idea if anyone considers doing speech and debate for 8 hours a week for 36 weeks unrealistic, but , if anything, it is shortchanging how much time she has spent. She also had 3 hours a week in singing for all four years at 3 hours a week for 45 weeks and again, that is less time recorded than she actually spent.</p>
<p>The student mentioned in posts #7 and #8 is the same guy, I believe. He was not only admitted to Harvard (after being recessed from Bowdoin), but spent two or three years at Harvard. He was caught only when he began to apply for graduate fellowships. At that point, he applied to Stanford, Yale, and probably other places, using the same technique as before. Yale caught on. Stanford didn’t. He was admitted to Stanford for what should have been his senior year of college.</p>
<p>^ [Adam</a> Wheeler](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Adam Wheeler: Lying Harvard Student's Resume Claims Multiple Manuscripts Written, Awards Won | HuffPost College) and [Duped</a> Harvard!](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>Adam Wheeler: Former Harvard Student Indicted For Larceny and ID Fraud | HuffPost College)</p>
<p>Honest people don’t inflate them but some dishonest people do. That’s the crux of it. Some people totally make things up but even for some people who really do some of the community work, I’ve heard of people who actually double the hours if they do it on a Sunday figuring it’s like getting paid ‘double time’ which is ridiculous.</p>
<p>Some outside ECs are easier to verify - for example a Girl Scout Gold Award or Boy Scout Eagle Award since the org itself has some validation of the work done to achieve it but lots of outside ECs have no way to accurately verify, for example those who did some work but inflated hours. The one’s who claim ECs who are completely making it up may be easier to verify. </p>
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I’ve heard that as well and as more stories come out about people who manage to hoodwink Stanford, Harvard, Yale, and the like come out, which embarrasses those institutions and makes a mockery of their admissions process (to this limited extent), the more they’ll hopefully start to do some random checking as well as some targeted checking for the more unbelievable applicants.</p>
<p>All that said, any honest, ethical applicant who doesn’t want such lies on their conscience will do the right thing and fill that section out accurately.</p>
<p>On a related topic - what about verification of other admissions factors at some colleges - URM status, first gen to college status, and the like?</p>
<p>Dishonesty will always exist, I told my children not to worry about what others do, if being honest puts them at a disadvantage, so be it. They wouldn’t even round up hours for EC’s…but I think being honest is refreshing and admission counselors see it.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t want to be the student being called on lieing about being a URM or saying his parents didn’t go to college, how they would know or if they would ever know, isn’t really the issue, wanting to do it and what that says, speaks louder.</p>