Do most people in this forum lie about their accomplishments/EC's?

Applying to College
1

I wanted to post a thread about my admission, but after browsing through the forum, it feels like every here is an overachiever. I see people taking 20 AP classes, president of 5 clubs, 4.0 GPA, 1000 hours of volunteer service, etc.

I’m not saying I am a bad student, but my accomplishments aren’t nearly 1/4 as good as anyone I’ve seen so far. Sorry, I’m pretty new to this forum but I just wanted to know if it was common for people to boast and lie about what they have accomplished here. Thanks :slight_smile:

2

There is no point of lying about an accomplishment, especially on a forum. A few may exaggerate, but I like to believe that most people are telling the truth.

3

@iDontGetBs I don’t get BS either. I feel like most people do tell the truth (since they really do want to get advice), although I have seen many who clearly exaggerated, and a couple that I’m 95% sure lied about their accomplishments. As @AcceptableName said, there is no point of lying about accomplishments.

4

I’m going to guess that there’s a bit of bias in who decides to post stats on this forum. Yes, some may have stretched the truth, but for most, this is a safe place to broadcast their accomplishments. Doing the same in “real life” would show a lack of humility guaranteed to make their lives miserable.

5

Recently I saw some admissions officer say that the chances threads on this site were really being written by the parents. I don’t believe that for a minute. Most parents think those threads are pretty pointless and many of them are written in a way that does not seem adult. I do think there is some exaggeration or inflation going on with kids presenting things that very likely involved significant adult assistance as their own accomplishments.

6

I read some of the EC listings on CC and my jaw just drops. It is physically impossible for some of those lists to be accomplished. My daughter has had to go through a heck of a time to do the few ECs she did and every time i call her she is tired and complains of juggling the academic and EC load - numb at at times. I am absolutely certain many kids lie and exaggerate their accomplishments. Which is upsetting because I know kids like my daughter did not and they look average compared to these kids who did. The GCs must approve each EC listing to ensure such exaggerations are weeded out. Happens at my daughter’s school. Should be enforced everywhere. #$% Rant over #$%

7

Do children lie about what they post on this forum? No, I’m sure that most of what is posted is truly what the applicant reported to colleges. Now would I say some lied on the original application? Absolutely, while there are many of the top people in the country on this site, the sheer number of hyper-involved applicants on here makes it obvious that some lied about their time, depth of involvement, club existence, or otherwise.

They’ll make you feel insecure, but just realize that not everyone going to a top 50 school has the stats of those people.

8

Unanswerable question, of course, but more importantly, the answer has no bearing on your questions or accomplishments. Come on, now.

9

They have to be grossly exaggerating - there are not enough hours in the day for what a lot of these kids are listing as ECs and APs. Some of them are scary…

10

My D is one those kids with a few ECs that keep her very busy, but she does know a couple of kids who manage to do everything. So, the type kids who post on CC do exist.

OP, I’ll bet you know a kid like that at your school. Take kids like that from every school in the country and you have CC. They are rare in each school, but common on CC.

11

You really think the stuff on here is not just a lie but actually impossible? If so, you’re dead wrong.

12

I think it can depend on the school. My kids went to a small independent school, about 50 kids per grade. Kids were encouraged to do a lot of ECs (or the schools couldn’t field teams!). Coaches were flexible, too – vs some big high schools, where you are all in or off the team. Add that to active summers with multiple ECs, and required service hours, and my kids had very impressive ECs.

OP, stay off the Ivy forums – you will see crazy stats out there. But… for the very top schools, those are the apps they are getting. The good news is that there are tons of great schools for students who aren’t superhuman, too. CC can help you find those.

13

@suzyQ7 It’s not impossible at all with proper time management and perhaps a bit less sleep here and there.

14

I stand by my post that there is a lot of exaggeration by some of these kids doing it all (or all on their own) on CC. I’m talking about the crazy EC kids, mind you. Case in point:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/1851426-i-am-the-founder-and-ceo-of-a-1-5-million-startup-chances-to-get-into-stanford-cornell-and-gt-p1.html

Anyway, OP, you don’t need to do that. Be true to yourself, work hard and take courses and do activities that you actually are interested in.

15

I don’t know if this is true but I saw this on Reddit:

And do you all really think that people wouldn’t lie on here just because it’s an anonymous forum? People lie on the Internet all the time, it seems to me that the fact that this is anonymous would make them even more likely to lie. They have nothing to lose if they do lie. I’ve seen plenty of users on here that are obviously t r o l l s , but people still believe them.

16

Reddit has a strange distrust of CC that I really don’t understand. As if the only thing the site has is one singular chance thread for the Ivies, or something. They seem to ignore the financial aid forum, the SAT prep help, the parents who keep logging on to impart the knowledge they’ve gained from their own kids’ application processes…

17

Why does it matter if some people exaggerate? If you want to spend time chancing them, go ahead… otherwise ignore them. I am much more offended by people looking for avenues to cheat or find a shortcut, and who will do anything to get into what they perceive as a top college.

18

You do know, don’t you, that the founder of Quizlet was in high school when it debuted? This stuff does happen.

19

I think there are three pools of posters with outsized lists of accomplishments.

  1. People who fudge a little or outright lie for some reason. I've seen a few posts where kids get the name of an award they supposedly won wrong repeatedly or report having the lead in the school musical and captainship of two varsity sports all in the same season. Sorry, not buying it. I have no idea why people do this. I think sometimes on CC it's because kids are trying to gauge their chances at dream schools if they were to pull off a superhuman schedule in the coming year.
  2. People who report their EC's honestly, but whose activities are not as impressive as they sound. For instance I have a HS freshman who's on track to to be a 4 year varsity starter in a sport at her school. Next year, as a sophomore she's likely to be the highest ranked on her team. Sounds impressive, right? Not so much when you find out it's a small, fledgling team that's currently playing other schools' JV teams. She'd barely make JV in a highly competitive program but she wouldn't be lying if she reported being the highest ranked kid in her school. There are a lot of kids who started charities they'll abandon as soon as college acceptances come out, presidents of clubs that meet once a month for a half hour, kids whose honor society duties consist of nothing other than the community service hours they're reporting separately in the volunteer section. They're not lying about what they do but AO's have seen plenty of these less than meaningful activities. Thus the exhortation to pay attention to depth not just breadth.
  3. People who really DO do all that impressive stuff. Yup there are people with boundless energy who get more done in 24 hours than most of us accomplish in a week. Good for them. They'll go far and the world will be the better for it.

In any case, it doesn’t matter what other people are doing or reporting. Be the best candidate YOU can be, and that doesn’t mean you should fill your week with an endless flurry of activity. Do things that interest you. Notice the world around you. Get involved because deep down it makes you feel good about yourself. Instead of worrying about looking like an interesting person do the things that will help you to become a genuinely interesting person.

20

For the most competitive schools, the ECs that count are those about which there is a paper trail. There is no point in lying about winning national awards or having developed products, etc. They are easily verified. These schools are not that interested in participation in school clubs and such. They are looking for actual achievements. For these, letters of recommendation and public paper trails provide verification. For less competitive schools, over and above the usual participation in school clubs (something that is often reflected in GC and teacher letters) the most influential aspect of the application are also verifiable, scores and grades. So exaggeration in how many clubs or whether the student was really a club officer, for instance, won’t accomplish much on this site or on the application itself.

People on this site are a small self selected group-not representative of the population of students applying to colleges.