<p>It's unfortunate that some ppl lie or stretch the truth to make their applications more competitive. My question is, how do colleges find this out, and what are the consequences?</p>
<p>btw thanks to all the ppl who answered my question about waiving rights to see recommendation letters:)</p>
<p>I think they usually trust you, but the readers are experts, so even though it is possible to get away with something, it's mostly either not a huge deal or it's so unrealistic that the lie sticks out. I heard that sometimes the admissions deans might contact your counselor to make check up on something. The consequences are they will reject you, and they will tell all the other colleges you applied to that you lied.</p>
<p>depends on what you lied about</p>
<p>if you lie about some national award, like Intel, they can easily verify/disprove that (check the website for it)...but you lie like you volunteered 40 hours instead of 20, i dont think they will catch you...besides theres really no difference if you volunteered 20 more hours...but there is a difference in winning a national award...</p>
<p>why do you ask? thinking about it?lol</p>
<p>if they catch you your life is ruined..youll get blacklisted at eveyr college</p>
<p>They scan CC for questions like yours and track you down! JK!</p>
<p>^lol true. A lot of the times the college will first contact the counselor and the student and ask for an explanation or proof the award or EC. The ADCOMs will usually believe you, since you sign saying its the best of your ability, but obviously every year tons of people lie.</p>
<p>^ Yea, but usually the lies, if important enough, are found out (like two presidents of the same club applying or something from the same school in same year...lol). Google makes it so much easier to check now too on bigger things. Though with most schools, they just believe you since they dont have the time or desire/effort to go through and do intense background checks on 20,000 students from across the world. It would be impossible and a stupid waste of time and life.</p>
<p>i'm just asking because i hate the idea that some ppl will lie and get away with it and therefore get in a better college than a person who was honest</p>
<p>Morals aside, it is not worth lying on your app, because if you are caught, it is game over. The stuff that is not verified independently is not important enough to make the difference of getting you in or not. The big stuff is verifiable and is caught easily enough,things like grades and test scores. </p>
<p>The way kids get caught with the little stupid things that are not checked usually is because it is a smaller world than you would think. Saying you chaired the MD Walkathon is not a good idea since you don't know who is reading your app and it might be that her brother in law was the biggy in that walkathon and, zap, you are caught. Also if there are inconsistencies between your brag sheet and your recs and other parts of your app, the adcom just might make a phone call. Also, there may be kids from your highschool already at your college. My son ran into a former student who was working in the admissions office at one of the schools where he applied. Also, you don't know who else is applying, who knows your school, your teachers, your coaches, fellow students. Not a smart idea since the down side is way down there and there is not much if any up side.</p>
<p>would national spanish honor society and national honor society be counted as national awards/accomplishments? I hope they are...</p>
<p>At our HS, in order for the school to send in transcripts and counselor recs, the student must give the guidance department a copy of their complete app, even if they applied on-line (they have to also run off a hard copy). Guidance goes over the app and if they see something that looks funky, they will call the kid on it. Our school feels that any lying on apps reflects badly on the HS and I tend to agree.</p>
<p>Appart from easy sorts of things that are easy to check (i.e., factual) I am guessing that they have profiles of things that are unlikely to go to gether historically, and merit further investigation. Additionally, I would guess that there are certain patters of cheating which occur, making them easier to spot. However, there is the issue in the "ratting out thread", a "friend", colleagues parent, or whomever might rat you out to the school if they know.</p>
<p>first let's consider the downside risk ... caught while applying = rejected .. caught after starting school = expelled ... caught after you graduate = diploma rescinded. </p>
<p>Given the penalty for getting caught is so high it really makes no sense to include any small lies ... lies that wouldn't substantially change yoru chances of admission ... no positive affect fot the chance of losing your diploma .. not a good strategy.</p>
<p>At that risk level it would only make sense to lie at a level that might change the outcome of your application ... and then the odds of getting caught go way up. Random checks ... the lie creates suspicion ... the lie itself causes a problem (you're the second person from the school that made the same major claim) ... a recommendation unwittingly contradicts your lie (you claim you are a captain and teacher writes as an example of your character how you were a great leader even though you were not a captain) ... a recommendation does not back up your lie (you claim that music is the center of you universe and you've done great things and no one else mentions a thing about this thing that is supposed to be central to your life) ... etc. There are many unintended ways you can get nailed in a big lie .. it's very hard to live a lie.</p>
<p>As a parent I have to add one thought and it's a quote I like a lot ... the true test of your character is what you do when noone is looking. Gaining admission to a better school by lying to get in would certainly ring as a hollow accomplishment to me if it were me applying.</p>
<p>I agree, but those kids thinking about lying on the apps are not of that school of thought. They have to be given a pragmatic reason, and it is there. The things that really count are verified, those that don't are not, but if a lie is discovered inadvertantly, you are done.</p>
<p>I have a question! On my common app this year, I checked off grade 12 for track and field team. However it is not track season yet… But I checked it off because I join track and field EVERY year and there are no try outs…</p>
<p>Does that count as lying? What will be the consequences?</p>
<p>ntntnt that doesn’t count as lying so don’t worry! It’s the truth! :)</p>