If a college reaches out to a counselor to verify an EC, then the counselor catches the student lying, can the counselor force the student to tell the rest of their colleges? Is that common practice?
I hope so.
Are you hoping that this dishonesty will be overlooked?
3 Likes
me too! A lot of my friends/acquaintances are planning on lying, and I keep trying to convince them not to, but I can’t find solid enough evidence to dissuade them besides “its amoral”
My suggestion on this…please don’t take offense.
-
Stop talking to your friends immediately about college applications.
-
I think this is a MYOB situation.
I understand that you want others to be honest…but please. Just be honest yourself…and let the chips fall for those who aren’t…without your involvement.
6 Likes
And time to make new friends.
17 Likes
I think, like job references, these aren’t checked.
Colleges know kids embellish. And eventually it will catch up to them.
Many schools - a large # - don’t utilize ECs. And many are likely applying to those.
1 Like
Some colleges do random “audits” of applications. I have heard of the UCs doing that, but not sure how common it is. Maybe others have heard. And what they do is randomly select some number of applications and the student must provide verification of all claims made. So it does happen that students can get caught if they lie. And I have heard that guidance counselors will absolutely tell colleges - some even proactively - if they find out that a student lied on their applications.
1 Like
One thing to keep in mind: University admissions staff have done this before. High school students have not.
The admissions staff are likely to get a sense if something does not seem right.
I would be very careful to tell the truth. I would not pay attention to what other students are doing, other than maybe to encourage them (at most once) to tell the truth.
1 Like
If these other students are thinking they are Harvard material, and they lie about stuff they do, a counselor is going to know these students. The counselor rec is most likely going to give the app credibility, or not.
They are naive and misguided. Let them lie. They aren’t going to get in.
3 Likes
Another thing to note is that, as ECs increase in impressiveness, they also increase in verifiability. Winning a national championship in something is more likely to have news articles, web sites of the sponsoring organization listing the competitors and winners, etc. than being president of an obscure club at the school.
4 Likes
Your application with recommendations, your essay and your counslers information(what they write about you) and what you put down all tell a story about you. Once the story doesn’t line up it’s a red flag. Cheaters cheat. Not worth it in the process. This can be your future. Not worth messing it up before it starts.
1 Like
I’d like to agree with this but the Varsity Blues scandal showed us that students (and/or their parents) who. are willing to make up accomplishments, engage in cheating etc. can have that work out for them (until they are caught). I’m pretty certain that there are still families out there engaging in this type of fraudulent behavior - maybe I’m just a cynic.
I was watching SVU the other night. The episode was about moms sleeping with an admissions guy to get their student into prestigious Hudson u. I was thinking dang - I had heard of payoffs - but not that.
But maybe it’s just tv, not real life.
I’m sure there are people still doing that, but if we are talking about regular people who don’t have “connections”, their chances of getting away with fake achievements is less likely.
1 Like
I would also distinguish between embellishment and outright lying. If you were the co-captain of the lacrosse team along with 5 other kids and you put on the app/resume that you were the “captain of the lacrosse team” personally I don’t see an issue with that - admittedly a fine line.
Agree with what someone earlier on said about the more impressive the achievement the more verifiable it becomes. AO’s are also going to have a feel for what’s capable given the number of hours in a day. But to the original question, my guess is the HS Counselor is going to weigh the egregiousness of the lie against notifying any schools and it’s likely to be a lower threshold today than it was 10 years ago after the Varsity Blues scandal.
I think people are missing the point.
The OP didn’t ask:
- Do students lie on the application?
- Should students lie on the application ?
- Can colleges verify?
- Will colleges verify?
- Will a college reject an applicant who lies?
All those questions have been asked a million times. What the OP asked, which nobody posited, is "If a guidance counselor catches a student lying on a college app, could they/will they tell all the colleges they applied to? "
Maybe someone can weigh in on that question.
Depends on the counselor.
Honestly how would they know ?
They likely don’t see the app and likely don’t know everything about the kid - lives are spent more outside than inside school.
If this is a public school student the chances of a GC catching a student in a lie is probably low. Most public school GC’s are assigned 100s of students and aren’t going to be aware of their ECs - they rely on students to tell them. If a school calls the GC they will only be able verify (probably after doing some research) school related activities. That being said, I guess it would depend on the lie in terms of how the GC would react.
1 Like
But a school counselor doesn’t necessarily know everything about the kid or even know the kid - especially at schools with many kids where they just don’t have that rapport.
Anyway, the question was asked and I gave my answer - right or wrong.