<p>I have a friend( not me!!!) who lied about EC's on his fall 2006 college application. I am kind of upset with him because i want to go to NYU and if people continue to lie on their applications, then where does that leave the rest of us?? My friend claimed to have done numerous things for his church as well as school and thousands of hours working at a county theater and old folks home. He also lied about getting awards in technology and engineering. The thing that really gets me mad is that he was accepted!! I don't know what the decision was based on, but i'm sure that his faux list of EC's had something to do with it. What are the safeguards that prevent other kids from lying on their apps.? Are there any?</p>
<p>I've heard this discussed before, and I remember realizing that it was possible when I was completing my own application. I don't think there really is anyway for college admissions people to know if you're lying or not. They would have to check it out for like every kid. I mean, if you put like "cured cancer," clearly they could check on that, but little things, not that I'm aware of.</p>
<p>I agree with you that it's incredibly unfortunate. I guess I can see why kids would do it, but that doesn't make it okay. Personally I don't know anyone who has (well, I probably do, but I don't know OF anyone I know who has), and I didn't do that myself (haha as can be noted by how few ECs I actually had on my apps), but I think a lot more people do that each year than we might realize. Hopefully their insincerity comes across in other portions of their applications, like in their essays, but besides that....yeah, it's unfair. But I can't think of any precautions that could be taken against it.</p>
<p>How about the high school GC signing off on the school ECs?</p>
<p>Like GCs wouldn't lie. Pfft.</p>
<p>I don't think they would lie intentionally, but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to fool them</p>
<p>Scrowman, I don't know how big your school is, but mine has 852 graduating seniors. And about 8 counselors. There is no way in the whole wide world that the counselors could keep track of what extra curricular's each student does over four year, how much time they spend, what positions they hold, etc. Plus then you'd have to add in the out-of-school ECs, which they would literally be unable to verify (for instance, one of my ECs was "video editing" and I said that I edit videos for various clubs, other students' projects, etc. for about 35 hours a week one week a month. This is entirely true, but how would my GC possibly know this? You know?)</p>
<p>It's a nice idea, but it's just not really possible. Kyang is right, what would end up happening is that they would just trust our word for the most part, maybe only checking up on a few things on a handful of applications that may seem out of place.</p>
<p>It's hard for me to believe that people are putting awards down that they didn't recieve and not get caught. I mean, I can see like putting 40 hours of volunteer work instead of the 5 actually completed, but awards? That seems a little much to lie about.</p>
<p>Harlem, why is that hard to believe? If it's an in-school thing and not like an Intel Semi-finalist-type-deal, how are they gonna nail you? I'm not saying it's right, but I definitely see the potential for abuse.</p>
<p>Karma will always catch up with people like that. Sooner or later.</p>
<p>I just believe that there should be better safeguards to prevent this from happening. I know that it is virtually impossible for admission officers to check everyone, but the high school counselors should def. be more responsible. I refuse to lie on my college application. I've worked hard on the few EC's that i have done and hopefully that will be enough.</p>
<p>Lol, YOU are the SAFEGUARD.. why don't u report that to NYU? Then, your friends in a real trouble.</p>
<p>This happened once in my school. A girl who never participated in EC got into Yale by faking them. One of her friend (she didn't have "close" friends tho..) reported to Yale and the offer of admission was withdrawn..</p>
<p>There's nothing you can do. People who cheat will find ways to cheat. It's not going to change once you get into the workplace, the same people will lie their way to the top. Best thing to do is keep yourself honest and realize that this is going to happen EVERYWHERE, not just on college apps.</p>
<p>That is very true^^^</p>