<p>Do colleges want administrators to 'sign off' on extra curricular to prove that you did it? If so, what happens if the organization/administrators are out of touch. If not, what prevents people from adding fallacious activities to their extra credit lists?</p>
<p>Nothing prevents anyone from lying, just the act that you ne’er know if you left out a detail that could undermine the validity of an EC usually prevents it. But then again, it doesn’t always and chances that you’ll get caught aren’t exactly though the roof. It’s a risk, sometimes a huge one but sometimes it works out in your favor in AWESOME ways. I don’t encourage it 
They don’t want administrators to sign off, they usually take your word. UC’s happen to conduct random checks though.</p>
<p>Some schools do random checks, as noted above. More importantly, what HS students seem to think are important and what adcoms think are important often differ. So the things that people “stretch” or lie about often don’t matter. As for ECs that do matter, they involve things that are readily verified and would seem odd if they weren’t mentioned in any of the recs by teachers or/or your counselor.</p>
<p>I agree with mikemac. Students exaggerate silly things, like what they accomplished as president of the honor society (when they did nothing, or were vice president) - and it’s an utter waste of time (not to mention degrading). Why bother? It doesn’t get you even a second look. The stuff that does get an adcom’s attention - activities that really are impressive - usually come with public recognition of some sort, a letter of rec from someone in a position to know, or an essay that shows the kind of expertise that they know can’t be faked.</p>