<p>Chances she will not get caught and depending on where she is going, the EC’s will probably help her get admitted. It is a sad thing but many people cheat to get ahead in life and it works a lot of the time.</p>
<p>I’ve never seen anyone lie about being involved in an organization that they weren’t even remotely connected to. Adjusting hours and maybe the positions you held is one thing, but making the whole thing up? wow…</p>
<p>well if she gets caught I’d say she deserved it…
If she gets into a good college, she might be taking a spot instead of a student who is actually qualified and is not a cheater!</p>
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<p>Milking URM status or showing one’s ECs in the most flattering (but 100% verifiable) light–these things are very different than blatantly lying. </p>
<p>And why is using EC’s evidence of a broken system?</p>
<p>She said she founded an youth volunteers organization in a temple. I think that sounds pretty good and I don’t think colleges would bother to check that. She said she was involved in some other stuff- but she was only involved in association, her brother knew the people in the organization. In her “hobbies/talents” she also wrote that she sang and played an instrument for a long time…and I know for a fact she didn’t!</p>
<p>When I read her resume, she said “So can you tell which ones are fake?”</p>
<p>lol</p>
<p>“She said she founded an youth volunteers organization in a temple. I think that sounds pretty good and I don’t think colleges would bother to check that. She said she was involved in some other stuff- but she was only involved in association, her brother knew the people in the organization. In her “hobbies/talents” she also wrote that she sang and played an instrument for a long time…and I know for a fact she didn’t!”</p>
<p>Those activities would not impress admissions officers at the very few colleges that factor ECs into admission.</p>
<p>Also, the colleges that factor ECs into admission include places like Harvard that have alum interviewers who are active in their community and are good at sniffing out lies and exaggerated activities.</p>
<p>It is very hard to detect an international student cheating in ECs, so in my country ( I dont want to mention which country) some students who know the fact that admission staff wont detect if they cheat always exaggerate their ECs from 0 to … 10000000 lol. They make nothing into a national prize or camp (seems impressive huh?). That makes me so angry because I have done a lot of activities and have lower score/GPA than the one who learns all day and do nothing at all. At the end, he fakes an impressive profile ,even more than me. Who will win?
Not only ECs, they make up even major awards. I think you know about USACO; a lot of students in my country write in their resumes that they had awards in the USACO competition and no one can check that because they say they take part in the competition online under a nickname so admission staff cant detect them lol. ( They dont even know how to use Excel lol)
And now even IRML, I dont know if the competition records students who take part in the competition or not because if admission staff google it, they only know which teams but not which students take part in. So I took part in the competition and my friends didn’t, all of us have same awards. Kids always find ways to cheat
Students also fake in their GPA. Kids from a specializing school ( not my school) only learn the subject they major in ( Math or Physics…) and in other subjects teachers are encouraged to increase the score of students from very low to exceptionally impressive.</p>
<p>Fake profiles are now superfluous and no one can detect or even spend time detecting because it is impossible if they say: create a XYZ leadership camp or become the captain of the football team at school lol. They will not detect. That is so sad :(</p>
<p>Many international students do that? I think they just exaggerate.</p>
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<p>Of course they can, but they have to take some kinds of test, such as SAT/ACT, IB or Tofel to be even get considered in the top schools. If their test score does not match GPA, there is instant suspision. Foreign EC’s will not account for too much unless it is verifiable. Like NM said, even US EC’s the colleges will look at it with a grain of assult.</p>
<p>Also, if they have really cheated, it will show in the college soon enough. They just wasted money to come to some tough school for nothing, if they cannot take the rigor. I have seen many truly bright students drop out of ivies, including my relatives who have to transfer into a state school to complete their education. In America, colleges are really tough, especially in those top schools.</p>
<p>One more thing about EC’s. </p>
<p>Just write up your achievements in words is not enough. You have to show a photo copy of the awards, actual photos of the activities or even the video taping of the events. My daughter got waitlisted. She did every thing she could to get off the list, at that time, EC’s became important. She sent in a portfolio of her achievements including the photos of her work, thank you letters from charity receipients and a professionally video taped performace clip.</p>
<p>If you claim that you recieved money awards, you need to show a copy of the check.</p>
<p>I have never heard of applicants sending in photocopies of certificates, awards, etc. unless asked by the school. There’s no place for these in any individual school application or the CommonApp. Artloversplus, this is not a criticism of you personally, but this seems to represent an overly jaded view of the process. </p>
<p>There’s NO WAY the schools can check every claim on an application, so the Honor System remains alive and well. I agree that cheaters usually get what’s coming to them-but not always. My son was clearly the#1 student in his high school class for four years, but he ended up #2 because of some machinations by the eventual valedictorian. Every student and parent in town knew what had happened, and the other student’s reputation suffered. Both got into their first-choice school (my son is at MIT).</p>
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<p>That’s because other schools don’t hype their student’s GPAs.</p>
<p>@neuron,</p>
<p>Perhapes you did not read my post carefully. Did I say any thing about the photos etc. when my D sent in her APPLICATION? </p>
<p>The portfolio was sent when she get WAITLISTED and was sent directly to the Adcom to winover the school’s love… She did get off the waitlist after all at Uchicago and attending.</p>
<p>I applied to 9 schools including Chicago. My EC and awards list was 2 pages long. No school asked me to verify anything. I received a lot of cash awards over the last three years. No college asked me to send copies of the checks. I just listed my ECs and awards on my app. That’s it. I was admitted into all 9 schools including Chicago EA.</p>
<p>College apps are like tax forms. Some are 100 percent true but most aren’t.</p>
<p>What about awards? Kids say that they have USACO awards under a nickname LOL.
I have an ARML/IRML team score of 144 (2nd for international just behind China) but my teacher sent score too late so we are graded but not announced to have awards on the website of IRML. Should I bother to mention it in my appication? 2nd place in IRML seems impressive but I have nothing to verify except for a certificate of joining the competition.<br>
I also come to website of AMC and AIME and see the questions are not difficult at all because I took very hard course in Math so should I also mention it in my application.
There are a lot of kids who love cheating so everything I did seems to be nothing at all . So sad</p>
<p>@old college,</p>
<p>Apparently you do not need any outstanding ECs for your applications. If you got in all schools EA, there is no need to bust chops to proof yourself. It is those boarderlines that need a lot of work. NO SCHOOL will ask you to substaintiate your EC’s, we volunteered that to impress the adcoms.</p>
<p>OTOH, if some one starts to question your EC’s, be an interviewer or adcom, you’d better have some thing behind your claim.</p>
<p>kidloveit, </p>
<p>really, you did what you can and it will show when you are in school. It is better to get all A’s in a T50 school than got flunked out in MIT.</p>
<p>You can add a passage to your application explain your achievements.</p>
<p>Regarding cheating: My D is a sophomore & very involved in the community. She has been featured in several newspaper articles. Recently a girl who is a senior was featured in the newspaper because she had won a Gates scholarship & she mentioned her activities & involvement with two organizations that my daughter volunteers with. No one at the organizations knows who she is and it appears that she used my daughter’s activities as her model. There is nothing that we can do about it but the directors of both organizations are extremely upset & contacted her mother.</p>
<p>You, sir, are disillusioned.</p>
<p>cheating will always occur.</p>
<p>A friend of mine lied a lot on his apps. All his interviewers caught on. But Stanford doesn’t have interviews. He is off to stanford 2015</p>
<p>Colleges accept students who they think you will be a good fit, academically and personally. If your friend lies about who she is to appeal to a certain university, and if she gets accepted, she will not fit in. First, her academics will slowly deteriorate because she did not do all of her own work in high school and the academics at top universities are very demanding. She will most likely not receive good grades because cheating will be difficult to do at the college level due to the stress put on exams. Second, she won’t feel sufficient extra-curricular-wise because she will not contribute what she wrote in her application, while other students do. This is my opinion.</p>