<p>Applying to colleges is not an anonymous process. It is not a numbers game. When you show up on campus to start classes you are eventually going to meet face to face the people who have read your application and have been impressed by it. You will meet the people who, based on what you wrote, decide that you should attend school there. At selective colleges, the admissions officers are real people who mingle with the students, hang around the campus, and you will actually meet them. They are often recent grads of the school. They will know your friends at school, your profs, etc. That’s how they can figure out you lied on the application, whether it’s about your race or ethnicity, or your passion for fire-eating and knife juggling, or whatever you choose to write about in your application.</p>