First of all, this is about an international student from a country where everything can be solved with money, and I am not an applicant this year(!).
Not going into all details, let’s just say that there is very competitive applicant(international, national distinctions, perfect scores, GPA 5 out of 5 and distinction of a student of the year from Ministry of Education) applying as a freshman to top-20 colleges in US but he just finished the first semester at college in our country(a private university with American curriculum) and doing his second semester, but he didn’t mention that he is at university already. I know, you will say that colleges will know that he is at a college or not, but the problem is that you can’t check it unless you call the university. And cuz of his father’s money, at school all teachers wrote him recs where they didn’t even mention that he is at college. So, there is no way colleges will know that he is at a college rn.
He wrote that he was taking a gap year( but honestly he didn’t do anything during this year except taking SAT and college, so no idea what he wrote about what he was doing during this year).
Should I report colleges about what he is doing, that he is actually a transfer, not a freshman? There are lots of people from my country who applied as a freshman to Ivies and etc who deserve a place more than him just because at least they didn’t lie in their apps, and I don’t want him to take their places as a freshman. (and yes, I think he will take smn place at least at one of these top-20 as in addition to his credentials, he has a huge advantage over other applicants in our country as he didn’t apply to any kind of fin aid)
This is not your job! Instead, I would tell the guidance counselor or principal. They can decide how to investigate and report your allegations and to whom to report him. The only thing you can do is assure absolute accuracy in your materials. This student may have been admitted on own merits, but could find transferring credits from his current school to his upcoming school.
Well, his principal already wrote him a rec where he didn’t indicate that he was at college(principal knows that he is at college).
Unfortunately, in countries like mine, money decide everything, so principal will not do anything. (we don’t have counselors, education system is completely different from US , we don’t even have ESc at school or sport, whole education is solely academic-oriented)
He is going against rules applying as a freshman when he is already a college student. He should have been applied as a transfer.
If you know where he applied, and you have scads of money, you could pretend to be him and then order up copies of his current university transcripts and have them sent. 
Since that isn’t likely to be possible, all you really can do is live your own life with honor, and hold out hope that justice will eventually be served for this person.
Can you get his transcripts sent to a few universities?
My guess is that this is a rich kid who’s used to money helping him get out of sticky places.
I especially despise applications that have been ‘bought’ through kick backs and bribery (as this probably happened for essays, grades, recommendations, etc.)
If you find out that he has been accepted to any schools, as opposed to just applying to them, then you could send an email or a letter to the admissions department and identify him and his current college. It is against the rules, as well as immoral and unethical to lie about being at college. If he doesn’t get admitted, do nothing.
If he were to gain admission by fraud he would be welcomed on virtually every college campus. Just a fact of current life.
So did family money buy him “international, national distinctions, perfect scores…?”
How do you know the specifics of his enrollment, what rec letters say? That would be unusual.
Adding: and especially as you also state you’re currently in the US as an exchange student, not in your home country.
@lookingforward obviously, he got his distinctions himself, I have noted that he is very competitive and everything would be ok if he applied as a transfer. About recs, he told about that( he saw his recs). I don’t know what is unusual when there is an internet, and I can just text him whenever I want(we know each other from one project).
If he did his work and got his distinctions himself, didnt make up achievements, didnt steal poorer kids’ work or place, didn’t pay for grades or false recommendations, then it’s not as big of a deal. *
If he’s done nothing this semester, then he’s a freshman.
(In many countries you need to be registered somewhere, either at work or in education, even if you don’t take actual classes or have no grades. That doesn’t make you a transfer.)
*Yes there are countries where rich parents will use bribes for all of this.
I know of a number of high school students who have taken classes on a college campus yet still apply as freshman, not transfer students.
This is not your job. Your job is to worry about your applications, your qualifications, your own business.
Wait, I was thinking about this while running errands.
If your “friend”-- or whatever you want to call him-- applies as a freshman as opposed to a transfer, won’t he lose all those credits from his 1st university? They won’t transfer, and he’ll be starting over.
So, in effect, won’t he be a freshman for all intents and purposes? I realize that you’re supposed to report past schools, but I really don’t see how this particular situation benefits him at all.
The rules for transfer admissions varies considerably, even among the Ivies. Dartmouth, for example, considers someone a transfer student after they have “enrolled in college, even for 1 term or less”. Harvard on the only hand considers someone to be a transfer student only after completing one year of full time work.
So in the example above, if the student didn’t take a full time course load, he would still probably be considered a new freshman.
He may not be enrolled “in a degree granting program.”
I’m not endorsing any possible fraud, but OP may be taking this at face value, likely only knows what he ‘heard.’
Ok, to qualify everything, he is a first-year full-time college student, in a degree-granting program - business major. It is not DUAL-ENROLLMENT(we don’t even have such thing in our country or part-time learning) and he graduated school last year. He doesn’t want colleges to know that he is at college because gaining acceptance as a transfer is almost impossible for international students. His family is extremely rich, so they don’t care about that he will lose his first year of college or not. ( he will complete FULL year by the time he is supposed to start college in the US). So, what I mean, he is purposely hiding his current college in order to have more chances to gain acceptance.
P.S. I am not this year applicant, so I don’t worry about my apps.
If he can pay for everything, then being a transfer won’t be a problem.
But if he was such a hot property, why didn’t he get in anywhere last year considering that he was full pay?
Last year his scores were very low for top-tier schools, so he didn’t even apply. He just recently retook his SATs.
Being a transfer is always harder than being a freshman when it comes to Ivies or MIT, or any of top-20( he has a mix of top-20 and ivies on his list), so he decided to apply as a freshman.
Too much energy being spent on this friend.
You seem sure you know an awful lot about him, maybe too much. We’ve had these “I know someone cheating the system” threads and it often turns out they don’t know as much as they think. And are sometimes just too vested in it. Or frankly, in the past it’s been an OP’s own plan, (sorry, but hence some of the concerns here.)
Make your decision. Then focus on your own opportunities.
I have heard about every detail in his app(not only me, we live in a very tiny country and city, half of the city already know about him, it is not the US where everything is confidential, I can literally list everyone with their stats from my city who applied this year to the US). But anyway, I will wait until decisions and if he gets in, I will report him and let colleges decide if they keep him or not.
And no, it is not my case, I am still in high school, and have one year to go till my apps, not even sure if I will apply to the US after my exchange year(here I am a senior but in my country I am still a junior, lol, at least I will have two proms:D), my goal is Germany or Holland, Europe lover here 