Bystanders are complicit in the offense if they have clear, definite proof that something is wrong and they do nothing.
Up to you to decide whether your hunch is solid enough to tell someone.
^ What skieurope said. If it was something like that then yes, you don’t need to worry about it as that student will be blacklisted. Adcoms are much smarter than to not verify something as big as that.
The fact that the student got a likely letter is enough to question that, though. Perhaps the higher-tier college verifies the student after they have been admitted and rescinds the acceptance if evidence points toward an untruthful app.
I don’t think you should worry about it then, if it was something like listing that he was a part of 3 independent sports teams then you could talk to the GC but the Olympiad medal is enough to alert them.
I agree with what Nrdsb4 says, after all he asked ‘How to report’ it not ‘Should I report’.
So the OP has received the following advice:
Let it go. It’s none of your business!
Report it!
Why are you involved? Worry about yourself!
Report it!
This is none of your concern! You must be jealous.
Report it!
Mind your own business! Adcoms figure this stuff out.
Report it!
Etc.
I think the OP always planned to report it and just wanted validation.
I can just imagine the number of “reports of someone’s fake EC” top schools receive. They probably have system in place to deal with this. Jealous kids all over the world try to sabotage their more successful peers.
@bodangles If I were president of the chess club, and the other student claimed that he was the chess club president, then yes, I would report it.
But OP hasn’t said that he has actually seen the application sent to these universities. He has only said that he found a CV online for this person. Very nebulous in my opinion. Without more detailed info, I think a fair reading is that there is some sort of agenda underlying this. It says a lot more about OP than it does about the supposed offender IMO.
I think it should be reported to that student’s counselor, but ONLY if there is absolute proof, and if in lying, the cheat will be causing harm to someone else. Are this person’s lies “little white lies” that will harm no one, such as taking credit for a nonexistent activity or club? Or is the cheat taking credit for something that someone else did? If the latter, then you need to report it. Tolerating cheating and letting it slide means more people are happy to cheat. Especially if the cheater suspects that maybe people do know he lied, and does it anyway. I dislike the “not my business” mentality. It is your business because allowing people to get away with wrongdoings has an adverse effect on honest people. However, I do not think you should get any more involved than perhaps an email or note, anonymous if you like, saying “______ has lied about this activity and here is proof.”
Unless the OP has actually seen the other student’s application, he doesn’t know what was in it and doesn’t know that the person in question actually included these things. Just because he put them on a list somewhere else doesn’t mean they were included in the college application.
I’m in the mind your own business camp.
I think so too. I mostly posted so I’d get to say “I told you so” if there’s collateral blowback on him. 
I’m not above a little schadenfreude every now and then, especially with stuff like this.
In my opinion, the difference between a tattletale and a whistleblower is the motivation behind the action. Whistleblower=selfless and/or protecting the innocent, tattletale=desire to see people punished or self interest is furthered.
I’m seeing tattletale all over this one. Harvard doesn’t need protecting.
Fabrications in any competitive application process - for college, scholarships, jobs, etc. - harm every honest candidate, and so taking credit for nonexistent accomplishments cannot constitute a “little white lie.” White lies are generally understood to be harmless, trivial, and - under many definitions - selfless. Lying on a resumé or application is hardly trivial, nor is harmless, and it certainly isn’t a selfless act.
The ethics of reporting such fabrications are muddled, but white lies they are not.
The problem with reporting a little white lie is that no one is going to bend over backward to prove the lie. Furthermore, even if the little white lie indeed is found out, what point did the person reporting it make? Everyone lies occasionally. No one is going to investigate whether or not you really did get sick and that’s why you didn’t come to school, or a kid who says “yes grandma, I love the sweater you got for me” when in fact, the kid hates it. In these instances, the only person who is being harmed is the person doing the lying. Yes, you can argue that society as a whole ultimately suffers when someone tells a lie and gets away with it. Of course any kind of lying is wrong, but it isn’t in the OPs interest to be a “tattletale” as someone else put it. OTOH, reporting someone who is taking credit for the work of others, or more serious lies, isn’t being a tattletale, it’s whistleblowing, and it is important to report it.
As far as I am concerned, if Johnny says he was the president of the Rock Collectors club, are you really going to report him if he applies to Harvard? Maybe Johnny feels he doesn’t have enough good ECs to compete at Harvard. Maybe he is a bit underwhelming in real life, even though he is a great, smart student. I personally don’t think reporting Johnny for that kind of lie is worth it. If however Johnny claimed he organized a fundraiser for disabled kids and collected thousands of dollars, when in fact someone else did that, yes, that needs to be reported. You can’t go around being the policeman for the world. You have to make a distinction between what’s importsnt and what isn’t. I do not think reporting Johnny for claiming to be pres of,the Rock collectors club is worth it. His application will probsbly out itself in other ways and he wouldn’t get in. Even if it was my own kid applying, I wouldn’t do it, because it is petty. No one likes a tattletale.
^ That’s a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line?
I don’t know @renaissancedad , but in my example, I think you draw the line where I suggested: if no one is harmed other than the liar, don’t report it. I added to my post above to clarify. We can’t be a society where every single lie is outed, especially if it is inconsequential to anyone but the liar. I wonder if OP would have posted this if his classmate had told a lie on his application to Ohio State, or similar? I wonder if other posters would feel that the lying should be reported no matter what?
Of course lying is wrong. But tattling is wrong too. I draw the line when others are involved in the lie. And yes, again, we can all argue that society suffers as a whole when people lie and get away with it. This is true. As I stated in my first post, I beleve 100% that if the OP has proof and the liar is taking credit for things he hasn’t done, or in some other way involving outside parties, it should be reported.
OP, can you explain how you know for certain that this student claimed these things on their application? I assume you have heard rumors and not seen the app itself. You saw an online CV, but not the app. In that case, you are on thin ice to report it. Who knows if the rumors are true? What if the person spreading them has another agenda, or misinterpreted something they heard? Or if the applicant said he MIGHT claim these activities, but didn’t actually do it.
Also… my kids had ECs that no one at school knew anything about. Could be at least part of what is going on here. One of my kids competed in USABO, for example, and no one at school except her Bio teacher knew.
Exactly with intparent ^
First, you saw his CV on the internet (how?), not the application. He could have changed his mind and submitted a truthful application. Are you friends with this person? You haven’t confronted him yet but made a thread about finding a way to report him based on inconclusive evidence while emphasizing him being one of the few to get an interview (which means nothing, interviews are granted to all applicants that have a representative close-by).
Tbh, this sounds more like jealousy.
By the way, how are you going to prove that he lied?
Why would you be cross checking things? I suggest you stay out of it. It’s really not your business. And what if you are wrong about the EC abeing fake?
Getting an interview is not an indication of acceptance.
To the comment about whistleblowers vs. tattletales. In the US, whistleblowers in certain situations are entitled to a percentage of what is recovered. This is has resulted in tens of millions of dollars being paid out to whistleblowers so the motivations are not as cut and dry as @MotherOfDragons laid out.
I’m of the opinion that admissions offices appreciate whatever help they can get. Cheating on tests, ghostwritten applications, and falsified information by internationals (two countries in particular), are a huge problem for Adcoms. This is one reason, I suspect, that more Skype interviews are being done for internationals who are strongly being considered these days because not even TOEFL scores can be trusted coming from certain countries.
Honestly, this whole situation is weird. You found the CV of a guy that you barley know (it’s clear you don’t know him well) and decide to discuss his activities with his teachers? Even if he is lying, I think for your own sake you should let it go.
- If you’re wrong, you risk coming across as REALLY creepy and a major stalker. If I found out that some classmate of mine was asking multiple people about my extracurriculars I would be a bit scared.
- Just because his friends or teachers don’t know about it doesn’t mean it’s a lie. I’ve taken bass guitar lessons for years and only my best friend knows. I have a job helping organize major events at an art museum in my city but I barely talk about it.
- At schools like Harvard and MIT, extracurricular activities make up such a small equation of admission decisions that it’s just not worth it. If this guy is smart/talented enough to get in, then he probably would have gotten in without his fake activities.
- The concept of “taking a spot from an honest applicant” is pretty naïve. Most colleges admit more students then they can take because they know that not everyone will enroll. It’s not as if this guy being accepted is going to make a difference between some kid getting off the waitlist.
- At the very least you should give the guy a heads up so that he isn’t totally blind sighted. Who knows, he might have an explanation.
OK guys!
I actually know the guy very well.
The point that I was trying to make here is that even though he faked an Olympiad medal, he still got through the admission committee and got a likely.
These things can be searched very easily on the Internet, so I looked up the names of all the people who got a medal in the last 5 years and this guys name wasn’t there on the website.
I actually have seen his commonApp’s AH and activities section and it turns out that he did fake his ECs.
@intparent @Hamlin
That is my point I asked all his teachers, his sister and even friends(emphasis on all) and no one knew that he had participated in those ECs.
@Falcon1 , good point about whistleblowers and rewards. Maybe we need another word for truly altruistic whistleblowers. Unicorns, maybe ;).
@Jelloshozz if you really did “ask all his teachers, his sister and even ALL his friends”, they’ve gotta be thinking you’re up to no good at this point. Seriously.
If you came to me and started asking all these questions about my kid or one of my friend’s kids, the information you’d get would be, um, vague at best, and misdirectional at worst, because it’s none of your business.
So don’t assume you’re getting the truth from all the people you’re interrogating.
@Jelloshozz Thanks for clearing up. You should still stay out of it IMO, for all the reasons @MotherOFDragons lists.
What I find really odd here is that it seems you have talked to EVERYONE else, but not to the guy that “you actually know very well.” What’s up with that?