<p>Do you fake and bloat your application essays? And if you do then how much? I mean if I just prevaricate that I taught an underprivileged poor kid for an year then how can the admissions officers tell whether I am lying or not. There is no certificate available for such a social activity. So do I just fake it? lol!!!!!</p>
<p>lol if you have to fake it then you probably won’t get in elite schools regardless if you boast or not. And if you going for average school then there’s really no point of boasting EC since they aren’t looked upon that much.</p>
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<p>For one thing, your interviewer will probably ask you about it. And most people are not terribly good liars in person - even if they get the words right, their body language tends to give them away.</p>
<p>nah i m going for the elite schools and i m a competent candidate…i just thought i should boast to maybe add a little colour you know…</p>
<p>and what if you were a confident enough individual to pull off the lie?? and you came prepared also…moreover interviews apply to only some cases</p>
<p>If you tell a lie big enough to give you a significant admissions boost, your lie can easily be found out. If you tell a lie small enough that it cannot be easily found out or or is too insignificant to bother with, it won’t give you an admissions boost.</p>
<p>You have to look at yourself in the mirror everyday. If you are proud of what you see and what you know you have done, then who can stop you? If it turns into a habit, it will catch up with you…it always does…eventually!
If you feel like you have to lie about your responsibilities, can’t you just do something about them instead? It can only help you become a better person!</p>
<p>It seems the general concesus is that you shouldn’t risk lying, or the gain would be small if you did lie.</p>
<p>why don’t you just go do it. Just go teach an underpriverliged kid.</p>
<p>your GC and teachers would be presumed to be familiar with anything you do that is sufficiently notable to affect an admissions decision, and corroborate you claims in their rec letters. so, be sure to let them in on the fabrication as well.</p>
<p>well said, shuaishuaishuai</p>
<p>If you lie, it will come out, especially in person. There has been lots of research lately into something called “microexpressions”. When we lie, even if we think we do it well, there are certain facial elements that give it away. We can’t control them, and people who see them don’t register them consciously, but recipients get an uncomfortable feeling and believe the person is lying.</p>
<p>It won’t work because it will not be supported by the rest of your application package.</p>
<p>For example, your gc’s and teachers recommendations usually track with something like that. If your GC does not write about your wonderful involvement with poor, underprivileged student, or if the head of the tutoring/mentoring program does not write a letter of recommendation, etc., then the elite college adcoms recognize the claim as no more than puffery.</p>
<p>Adcoms have seen it all and they are not stupid. Basically, if an activity is important enough to make a difference in an application package it is supported in many aspects of the application…and if it is not important enough to make a difference in an admission decision than the admissions committee doesn’t really pay much attention to it at all.</p>
<p>Here’s the thing, 99% of schools could care less what you did outside of the classroom. At the 1% that care, helping a single underprivileged kid would not raise an eye brow. Kids here are confused about what’s important, which is a track record of sinking your teeth deeply into an activity and accomplishing something substantial. This, along with starting a club that doesn’t do much and spending a few weekends with Habitat for Humanity, does not impress.</p>
<p>Here’s what I’ve always believed. Colleges want to know whether or not you’re a competent writer. They use essays to judge this. Whether your essays are 100 percent accurate, 50% accurate, or 0% accurate is irrelevent. The only thing that matters is how you write, not what you write about.</p>
<p>^incorrect, but they do need to judge your writing ability</p>
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<p>Totally incorrect. Thats what the SAT writing is for. The essay is for the committee to see what you’ll bring to the college.</p>
<p>If the essay is obviously false (“I give daily advice to the President”) then it may hurt you, but if you are like 99.99% of applicants who write about personal feelings, challenges, and decisions, then factual accuracy is a minor component of the essay. Think about it. We’re all 17 or 18. Nothing of significance has remotely happened the vast majority of us. So what are we supposed to write about? If I were an adcom, I’d much rather read an essay about how an applicant helped a made-up disadvantaged kid than read an essay about how the same applicant struggled with his feelings of inadequacy. How many of those must an adcom read? In the real world, the very foundation of almost all autobiographies and biographies is hyperbole. Ditto for our essays.</p>
<p>I have to disagree with almost everyone here. It is fine to bs a bit on your application, to exaggerate here and there. Obviously, don’t base your entire essay on something that didn’t happen. But you can make up a few details to make your essay more interesting.</p>
<p>Everyone keeps saying that lying about small details wont make enough of a difference in the admissions process, but it’s apples and oranges. Little details in the essay make the difference between a great essay and a crappy one.</p>
<p>As Grouch Marx supposedly said, integrity is everything- when you can fake that, you’ve got it made.</p>