Do colleges check if your app was not falsified?

I have a classmate that added a few extracurriculars to their application to make themselves look better. Now, not all of their ECs were false, but not all of them were true either. I don’t think this is fair. Do admissions counselors call the schools of their applicants to confirm applications?

<p>Think about how many people apply to colleges, think about how many phone calls that would equal and I'm pretty sure you can answer this one yourself. :)</p>

<p>If you listed something like "Curing cancer" I am sure they would want to verify it.</p>

<p>Any college may check if they get a suspicion about the app. Also, some have gone to randomly checking some apps (like the UC's), but to some extent it is kind of like a tax return and your chance of being audited. Colleges have to rely on the honesty of their applicants and presumably most are honest.</p>

<p>Randomly, yes. Adding lies is just a dumb thing to do.</p>

<p>I have a friend who is an adcom at an Ivy League school. She says that after all these years, they can "just sense" when something is amiss on the application. They check, and usually they are correct.</p>

<p>Also, if a school can only admit a few from each school, they will look between the the two or so applications, and sometimes they'll call the school to ask about the applicant. So, unless they happen to be up against another applicant that's almost as equal to them, then I don't think they'll call... Course, Chrism mentioned some good info. I'm sure it's easy to pick out the liars....</p>

<p>They will go back and randomly verify things, especially if they look suspicious. I heard a story from one adcom that he/she just finished reading an application, and then they picked up the next one. The second one said that they were ASB president of high school X, which sounded familiar. So he/she picked up the previous application, which also said that they were ASB president of high school X. So they called up the high school, found out which one was lying, and then disqualified that applicant from all of the UC schools they applied to.</p>

<p>That one was just a 1-in-40,000 freak occurrence, but it's not worth lying to make yourself look better.</p>

<p>Random clubs and activities don't matter anyway. Significant achievements are hard to fake and easy to verify.</p>

<p>like performing at Carnegie Hall. Wait, I really did perform there!</p>

<p>i have a question...</p>

<p>i know that it's very easy to verify a student's grades and whether or not they participated in a certain sport, but how do colleges check reported volunteer hours and club memberships?</p>

<p>Let's say you were going to play a sport that started in February. When you applied to a UC in November, you wanted to show that you would be doing that sport your senior year, showing continuity over four years. But let's say something else came up instead, like you getting a job, and you decided not to play the sport. Is that lying?</p>

<p>No it's not, however you need to contact the UC and inform them of such.</p>

<p>Ig you contributed an extremely large amount of hours to some sort of community service , some on is going to know about and is going to be proud to tell the adcoms about your dedication : guidace counselor, teacher recs. In addition, you would want to tell some one about it in possibly your short or major essays because of your passion and commitment to that cause. It does set up flags and adcoms are not stupid. While a laundy list of ECs willnot get you in, lying about them will kepp you out, so it is just not worth it</p>

<p>What if there are co-presidents or two people share a position? That doesn't mean they lied. For our literary magazine, I share the position Editor of Prose with another kid, so naturally we're both going to write it down. Are they going to think that's suspicious too?</p>

<p>I wouldn't worry too much if that were the case. Sure, they're going to get suspicious, but when they call your counselor up, they will know that it is a shared position. They will know that you told the truth. If you really feel bad about it, you can always include it in the extra info page (if there's any). Let them know that it's shared, and be sure to include anything else that may be relevant, such as the difference in nature of both your duties (again, if any).</p>

<p>Every year they make a few random calls just to check things, and a few when they get suspicious that something is wrong with the app</p>

<p>They'll only check if your application conflicts. For example, if one part of your app makes you look very introverted and yet you have 6 presidencies, that would look suspicious. Likewise, if the award you've won are too improbably for your other academic history. They won't bother to check anything that won't even affect admissions, such as a few extra hours of Comm service or a few extra years of a random club.</p>

<p>If someone lies and gets away with it, take comfort in knowing they will continue to tell bigger lies as they go along and eventually they will share a cell with someone named big Ed or they will become President.....</p>

<p>Just worry about keeping yourself honest...It is a full time job.</p>

<p>Well, at my school in my class there was a kid who applied to UPenn.
He had taken a transcript from a girl last year and altered a few things on the document (basically to show that he has a really good class rank) and then he went ahead and took letters of rec. that teachers made him and rewrote them. Additionally he wrote his own counselor's letter of rec.</p>

<p>Anyway, over winter break (he had applied ED) Penn called the counselor to talk about him and she said she never wrote any letter of rec for him. Then, the truth just kinda came out.</p>