<p>I studied in a foreign high school and I'm a non-US citizen. My high school is very poor technologically - the teachers do not know how to use computers properly, the Guidance Counselor doesn't give recommendations properly, etc. The administration is very week.</p>
<p>I'm the only student from my school to apply to the U.S. from its advent, 1990. Most students study in national public universities or other countries (which require hard copies of transcripts). </p>
<p>In October, when I applied for my Early Decision application to my college, guidance counselors were not familiar with the online common app system of sending recommendations and transcripts. The don't know anything about the educational system in the U.S. They even don't own e-mail accounts! So they refused to submit the materials online.</p>
<p>Worried about what to do, I made e-mail accounts through Gmail using their names and registered to the common app myself! I made all the recommendations myself from internet samples (as they would have made if they knew how to use the internet) and made a transcript (giving all TRUE grades I have...My school is a very easy school...no I never had a 'B' in high school with all A's). My school is a British patterned education system (A-Level) and I even scanned by GCSE and Advanced Level certificates. Next, I scanned the Principal's stamp and signature ands pasted on it. My school has no definite system of giving transcripts. The design varies continuously. I even made the school profile!!! :@</p>
<p>Luckily, I got accepted ED to this college and decided to attend. I even sent my Mid Year Grades myself in January upon request through e-mail. </p>
<p>Now, my question is, will I get caught in doing this. I had to this because I had no alternative. The Principal and Guidance counselors and all teachers are computer illiterates and don't even own a computer :@ Now, I can't even be guilty of what I've done. Will my acceptance be affected? Or will I get expelled from the school when I reach there?</p>
<p>Please suggest me as this is a serious condition.</p>
<p>Okay first of all, I think you should let your teachers and Principal know about this. If they do, and if they are okay with it; then I don’t think you will be in any trouble.</p>
<p>If they didn’t want to send the recommendations online, you should have got them to send paper copies of it in. Why didn’t you do this? Its what I did.</p>
<p>No, I don’t think you’d get caught. But I also don’t think you should do it again. Also, didn’t you provide a phone number when asked? What if they call your counselor up?</p>
<p>Lolz, I am an international student, but Oh God, although I know I have to face a lot of problems while filling my apps but I can’t think of doing it myself. Now you must tell your teachers about everything.</p>
<p>@harlowmarlow: Look forget about what you did in the past, you can’t change it now; and stop worrying so much too. I honestly don’t think you’ll be in any kind of trouble if ur college checks with ur school, and ur principal and teachers say that every info you provided are correct. </p>
<p>My opinion is that you should simply be silent about it. You did not cheat modifying your grades (hopefully) and simply went all the way to do what your principal and teachers refused to do. Sure, there were better alternatives for all that, but you were probably desperate.</p>
<p>I, personally, would have done the same as you in your situation. I actually guided my teacher and principal on how to do everything and sent the documents by mail since the common app is not flexible enough. The difference is that in your situation it seems that your teachers were very irritant about helping you.</p>
<p>Besides, unless you went berserk on applying to Ivies, most common universities wouldn’t really know and wouldn’t care on investigating it.</p>
<p>Having said that, you probably twisted your story to make it look like you had no choice because you feel really guilty and wanted sympathy and reassurance here, don’t you have friends better suited for confessions?</p>
<p>Nevertheless, what’s done is done. As long as your grades, graduation diploma and test scores are real, it’s ok. The subjective things like recommendations are of no importance. Yet, whether or not your story is as you say or modified for confession purpose, falls on your conscience.</p>
<p>“The subjective things like recommendations are of no importance.”</p>
<p>The college wouldn’t have requested that info if it wasn’t important. Forging teachers and administrators’ signatures would be considered important enough that if the OP is caught, his admission will be withdrawn. I also highly doubt that his school faculty will think that what he did is no big deal.</p>
<p>Northstarmom, interestingly enough, we just left a meeting this afternoon with my daughter’s high school advisor to discuss the next couple of high school years. He stated that the teacher recommendations are “very very important.”</p>
<p>Back in the last century, Happydad wrote his own letters of recommendation for graduate school WITH THE APPROVAL OF THE PEOPLE WHO WERE GOING TO SIGN THEM. He did this because his English was much better than theirs and they just didn’t have time.</p>
<p>I can completely empathize with your situation, but you were very stupid to do this. You should have asked them if this would be a good way to solve your problem. They might have thought it was fine. They might have had other ideas such as sending paper copies of everything. Now that it’s done, you really need to talk with your teachers and the principal at your school and tell them what you did. Let them decide if it was OK or not. They are the people your college might try to get in touch with someday.</p>
<p>I, too, am surprised at the difference in reaction here than in the Parents Forum.</p>
<p>What the OP did is fraud. If indeed Dartmouth is his ED school, perhaps Dartmouth will find out. “Harlow Marlow” isn’t as anonymous as he assumes, either.</p>
<p>I’m taking a guess here, but the difference is probably due to the fact that here international students understand the frustration of having uncooperative school administration when dealing with US university applications. I’m in no way supporting what HarlowMarlow did, but I understand that the process is a lot harder especially for us in thirld-world countries. I myself had to spend a lot of time and money to get my things right.</p>
<p>I don’t know where the OP said his ED was Darthmouth, but I’m sure it would take a lot more than faking transcripts and recommendations to be admitted there. Teacher Recommendations are only important in very highly regarded universities, so if he were daring enough to do so, I’m sure the OP will be found out.</p>
<p>In any case, the guilt is eating the OP away and that’s why he’s posting here. And since he is guilt-posting, most of what he said is probably far from the truth. I actually have a hard time believing his school has no use of technology or that, if he is hard-working enough to have grades that got him into Dartmouth, teachers wouldn’t be willing to help him.</p>