Has anyone ever written a false information in your essay to achieve more notice? How do the admission’s office know that you are lying ? Do they do background checkings on you or do they scrutinize you when you are in middle of a semester ? Sorry if my lack of knowledge bothers you, just piqued my interest.
If your intentions are against the rules, do not attempt it. Otherwise, you really shouldn’t worry about it since everything on your application is verifiably true.
If the school discovers u have deliberately lied on your application, it is grounds for expulsion.
The people reading your application trust that you are putting your work into the application, but you could get away with lying. HOWEVER, there are easy signs that someone is lying. For example, if someone puts in their extra curricular experience that they were on debate team for all four years of high school and won awards, but teachers don’t talk about this in their recommendations, or you don’t talk about this in your interview then there may be some red flags. Also, for example, if your parents wrote your common app essay, but you did not get good grades in english or history for all four years, and your essay was outstanding, that might raise some red flags as well. Of course there are exceptions to this, like if that student took creative writing classes outside of school. What I am trying to say is, it is easy to tell when there are things out of place in a student’s application. Yes, you can exaggerate some things in your application, but flat out lying about something is dangerous. You need to be able to back yourself up. I wonder this too, how many people really flat out lie on their applications and get away with it, but I think when it comes to applying to colleges, it’s just so overwhelming, it’s hard to just lie on everything.
The other thing is that you have no idea what other people know. If you imagine everything from your point of view, you’re going to get surprised.
Sometimes schools do call guidance counselors to chat about an applicant, especially if the school is on the fence about admission or is seeking more information. I imagine that can trip up some applicants who lie.
People can tell a lot about you from what you write that might surprise you. For instance, I’ll wager you’re not a native speaker of English. How did I know that? Hmmm, maybe the same way an essay reader could catch a lie. Maybe the same way that teachers can tell who is plagiarizing. Something just “feels that way.” Is it possible that applicants can get away with lying? Oh, I’m sure some do. But really, you have no idea what the essay readers know and don’t know. You might think, “Hey, I’m in Tajikistan and there is no way they’ll be able to know that I didn’t win the Tajikistan Math Olympiad,” but it might turn out that their niece goes to your rival school and actually SHE won the Math Olympiad. You’d be surprised. Never underestimate the connections, the knowledge, the google skills or the well-honed bullshit detector of an adcom.
If there is something really significant (awards in state or national level), usually there is an easy way to find out. If it is for something minor, it may not help much in the application and not worth the risk. In other words, there is no reason to lie.
Also, the last thing you want is for your lie to be found out WHILE you are in school or already graduated and you get your admissions rescinded and all credentials lost.