First, let me just clarify that I don’t plan on doing any lying on my college apps. But I was wondering, how often/carefully do colleges actually check your entire application? Like if you said you played 3 years of a varsity sport when you were only on varsity for 2, or if you said you were the team captain, would they check? And what are the consequences? Again, not my plan to do any of this, just thought I’d ask
With the internet, it would be really easy for an ad com to check many items. Some things, including athletics, could be verified in a number of seconds.
Also, there are aspects of the application that you cannot control, such as your GC letter or your teacher rec letters. They may end up contradicting you if you, say, embellish your credentials.
A varsity sport is a sport that your school has a varsity team for as opposed to a club sport. Playing a varsity sport does not mean you were actually on the varsity level team. Claiming you were varsity the whole time is another story. But I think you would be fine saying you played football or baseball or whatever the sport was for however many years you played it. If they really wanted to know if you were on the varsity team they would ask that specifically. Like did you play a sport and how many years were you on JV vs. varsity. Or how many years were you on the varsity level team for your school.
What are the benefits? Three years of a Varsity versus two years isn’t going to get you any more points when the hands go up.
Anything big enough to be worth lying about can be very easily verified.
Lying is a deal breaker for the college. One little lie brings your character and your entire application into question. I can’t see your candidacy surviving that. Capt of a varsity team and no mention in the GC letter? They know to sniff that stuff out.
If it’s anything significant to your application, they’ll look it up or just call your school’s GC.
Things like 3 years or 2 years of sport will not make any difference in terms of college admissions. They might also call if they just sense something fishy (like if you are pres of 10 clubs with a boatload of EC’s)