I was talking about college apps with a friend of mine, and I was pretty disheartened by a low test score I just got. So I was talking about the club that I had founded at our school a few years ago, and how at least that’d look good on my college apps. Then she started bragging about how she just lied on the Common App about starting a club. That made me pretty angry because I worked my a** off starting my club at school, and I couldn’t believe that she would just lie about it.
So I was trying to discourage her from doing so, saying she’d get caught and whatnot. But she kept going on about how foolproof her plan was, that she said it was a club outside of school run by teenagers (i.e. no adults to verify the club) and that she even made a website for it, etc.
Should I turn her in? She seems to have made it pretty foolproof; I’m worried they’re not going to catch her. I hate to be a snitch, but having started a club myself, it’s making me really angry that she would get the same credit without doing all the work.
I think in this situation you have to look at it outside of the lens of college admissions. If you turn in your friend, what will you gain? Likely nothing except for a smug feeling that will fade to guilt when your friend tells you about their inability to go anywhere now. I know that you (rightly) think that what she did is very unfair, but it is likely that she will be caught anyway, and by helping that along you’re only hurting her and hurting your friendship.
@peytonmg Yeah. I know this sounds pretty bad, but I’m mostly hoping she’ll get caught. Because I don’t want to turn her in, but I really want her to be held accountable.
If this is her true personality, at some point it will catch up with her. You are responsible for how you handle yourself in situations, not what other do. Trust that eventually karma will get her in the end.
You and she both are seriously over-estimating the importance of starting a club to college admissions. Club founders are a dime a dozen (and in our over-lawyered area, so are starting non-profits 50c3s). Frankly, unless she can talk persuasively about the impact she’s had, the challenges she’s overcome, the lessons she learned as a result, the exposure she’s received - it’s worth squat. My guess is its just a line on her app that says ‘club name’ and ‘founder and president’ and will get her nothing.
Even if this weren’t true, it would still be wrong for you to report her to anyone. It’s vindictive and petty on your part. The ‘high road’ here is to reconsider whether this person is worth your friendship or is too opportunistic to be trusted with something important. Feel free to convey to her face to face that you are disappointed in her and thought she had more personal integrity if sharing your feelings will make you feel better.
Payback can be a wench. >:) She will get her comeuppance at the worst possible time, so there is no need for you to worry. (Plus, the counselor’s info letter will not have any mention of a club; that will seem like a very blatant omission).
If you can talk to your guidance counselor in private, do so. Explain what you heard your friend say, with the caveat that you do not know if she really did lie on the app.
You do run the risk of being outed as a snitch, and the friendship ending. However the truth is a noble cause and if more people were willing to stand up for it, fraud and deception wouldn’t be so rampant.
I’d just let it go. Starting a club won’t get you into a school you wouldn’t be qualified for otherwise. The more important thing long term is to determine if you want to remain friends with the person.
Don’t stress on it since it doesn’t affect you. I have better thing to think about. Lying is bad but since it doesn’t affect you and only benefits her, its best that u leave the situation alone.
Don’t worry about it. Know that you gained more from making your club such as experience. The only one she is hurting is herself. Don’t hurt yourself over her issue. (Basically, just pretend you never heard her)
In this case, what matters is what measurable impact the club had. Founding a club is, on its own, only better than being a member in one, ie., not much. Frankly, creating a club with no supervision from adults will not bring her anything in admissions and since a club that doesn’t exist can’t have made an impact (a documented impact) she’s lying and risking getting caught for basically zero gain.
If your club had an impact on others, raised money, changed something… document it and describe precisely what you did. THAT matters.
Neither can make up for a low (under 23/under 1600) test score, so focus on test prep and retake if that applies to your situation, AND/OR apply to test-optional colleges. http://www.fairtest.org/sites/default/files/Optional-Schools-in-U.S.News-Top-Tiers.pdf
Starting a club 99% of the time is going to your EC coordinator and telling them you’re starting a club. Colleges can’t tell whether or not you put in work, whether or not it’s successful, etc.
This is why, when juniors realized they had messed up and didn’t have any leadership positions, they all just started their own clubs. That way, it looks the same as if they had just been in it from the beginning and gone through a competitive application process to head one.
That’s what I hate - I worked really hard to become head of my school’s most competitive clubs because I genuinely loved them. Often, I had to beat out 5 others for the position.
