<p>a friend of mine applied to Emory, Rutger, Dartmouth, U Virginia, Cornell and JHU etc.
today she showed me her app and i was like WAAAATTTT
okay, she has lower scores than me and she was lazier than i was, but she lied about her ECs. Mine was pretty empty with only like 3 activites going from grade 9-12
she didn't do much ECs and she like almost checked off all the EC parts. I was worried for her but she told me colleges don't check. So, of couse, she's one of my closest friends and i hope she doesn't get checked by the schools. However i was just curious, do colleges actually check??? i mean i read they got like 2min for each app, do they actually check if the applicants have their ECs???
b/c i kind of find it a little unfair, although i enjoy my activities.</p>
<p>check this article out:</p>
<p>adcoms may become suspicious when an app is inconsistent. for example, if your friend appears to be involved in every ec under the sun, yet her gc never mentions any of these ecs in his appraisal, that's a cause for suspicion.</p>
<p>Adcom's don't normally call your school and confirm your every EC, but in cases like funkyspoon suggested (where ECs listed on a resume are nowhere on your GC or teacher recommendations), they may become suspicious and call your GC.</p>
<p>Every application that I've seen requires you to sign saying all the info you have provided is truthful and if its found out that she's lying, her application will autmatically be rejected.</p>
<p>Also, if your friend basically just checked off a list of clubs that she belongs to, that wouldn't count for much anyway. Most colleges are looking for students who show a deep and longterm involvement, which usually by senior year will translate into some awards, leadership position, good recommendations from a teacher/adviser, etc.</p>
<p>Some colleges also will rescind the degrees of students who lied on their applications. Lying simply isn't worth it.</p>
<p>but still, the person would still get in to the college. I only have 3 ECs but decent ones, one rec.ed. should i get rec from the other 2 even though the deadline was jan 1?
and i got a rec from a professor for something i did summer of grade 10.</p>
<p>"but still, the person would still get in to the college. I only have 3 ECs but decent ones, one rec.ed. should i get rec from the other 2 even though the deadline was jan 1?
and i got a rec from a professor for something i did summer of grade 10.
"</p>
<p>It's a myth that the student with the longest list of ECs is the one who is at the top of college's lists. Colleges tend to prefer to see depth over breadth in ECs. </p>
<p>A student who has done one EC for many years, and has done it with passion, leadership and creativity will get the nod over a student with similar stats who has had superficial involvement in a dozen activities.</p>
<p>Check this out: <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/articles/brief/02essaytweak_brief.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/articles/brief/02essaytweak_brief.php</a></p>
<p>"Most commonly, students embellish the truth, exaggerating a leadership role or their contributions on the soccer field. Spinning a bench-warming career into a star turn is a high-stakes move, since admissions folks are likely to contact the high school coach. Pomona's Poch recalls applicants whose number of weekly hours spent on extracurricular activities actually exceeded the number of hours in a week. If dance and community service are so much a part of your life, why haven't they been mentioned in your letters of recommendation? "In four cases out of five, [cheating] backfires," warns Hiss. You probably won't actually be accused of being dishonest. Nor will you get in. "</p>
<p>my ECs go only back into 11th grade. Nothing before that.</p>
<p>unless someone informs us of FACTUAL evidence that admissions officers really pay attention to these details, we will never know. </p>
<p>it is highly likely that news reports and people in general you talk to will tend exaggurate a bit and say that admissions officers are thorough and perverse. </p>
<p>anyone have some factual insight/observation?</p>
<p>well there are many exagerations that I see. </p>
<p>First, someone sits around in a club and does nothing, but claims they 'directed fundraisers' or 'encouraged recruiting' or something along those lines - these usually don't match with the personality of the person described, so if a rec describes the student as an average leader then it won't look too good</p>
<p>Second, people say they were in clubs for more years then they were. Again, you can't check this. But again, this can be reflected in recs.</p>
<p>Third, a person can claim they won awards whereas they never won anything in clubs and competitions like the Olympiads. There is no way to verify these, but the GC would definetely mention if this person was an award winner. And yeah, if someones in a club for one year and they say they win like 3 state medals and 10 regionals, it gets suspicious.</p>
<p>Mostly, the subjective portions of your recs need to match up.</p>
<p>wat if it doesn't seem like their personality but they got recs from official people?</p>
<p>I am the founder/president of a chapter of Amnesty International at my school. For certain activities, like a selective mentoring club at our school and for N.H.S. you have to get faculty advisors to sign off on you being in the club for it to be counted towards your admission. Random people were coming to me and my faculty advisor asking for signatures, and I was like "you were at like one of the meetings, are you serious?"</p>
<p>tell me about it, i co-founded the arts club with 4 friends, ppl came to our meeting 2wice and wanted some kind of recognition and exective position, i was like suck on this <3 lol</p>
<p>ok i got a q...sometimes when ur in a club or a team for a long time u get certificates or awards in the form of certificates...could one actually make useo f these by sending them off as supplementary materials...because i have a lot of them so i thought that i could photocopy some and just include them in my app...or would that not matter?</p>
<p>don't do that, it will add to their paperwork by so much if you send proof of everything</p>
<p>people who claim to have a bunch of accomplishments but no hard evidence can be seen through</p>
<p>i.e what would you say if someone claimed they were a 1st place in science olympiad and got a 500 on SAT 2 Chemistry?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it's usually not that obvious. Plus adcoms don't always scrutinize too carefully...there was an <em>interesting</em> case of that a few years ago that I know about....</p>
<p>oh come on, now that you mentioned it, you have to tell us about it</p>
<p>yea don't leave us hangning!</p>
<p>well then it seems obviously one could embellish a few subjective parts of his app safely if he makes sure everything matches up carefully.</p>
<p>The tweaks do little to change your chances upwardly but if you get caught or if the adcom smells "tweak", the downside is that you will be dumped. Not worth it.</p>