<p>Hi there, today I saw this post on common application facebook page</p>
<p>"Please think twice before deliberately misrepresenting parts of your application. Colleges have much more experience in sniffing this stuff out than you do in cooking it up.
Plus there's that whole "integrity" thing..."</p>
<p>What does "misrepresenting parts" mean?</p>
<p>Thank you a lot ^_~</p>
<p>misrepresentation = lying, overly embellishing, taking more credit than what is due, false, misleading, distorted, dishonest, etc.</p>
<p>BTW, please use descriptive titles to give members an idea of what you’re asking. For instance: What do colleges consider ‘misrepresentation’.</p>
<p>Ok, sorry :).</p>
<p>Also know that even if you get away with a misrepresentation and gain admission, at any time after that, if they discover it, they can kick you out of the university, or if you’ve graduated, they can pull your degree. It does happen.</p>
<p>I saw that today and I wondered why they posted that. Has there been an increase in suspicious-looking claims? It is just a random warning “lying is bad and we’ll get you”? I would hope kids know not to lie on college applications…</p>
<p>So do I, but I know that one of the FAQs every year is: do colleges check ECs?</p>
<p>If only 1% of the kids are submitting something “odd”, that’s still a lot of kids. And I suspect the percentage is a lot higher than that, especially for kids who feel their application is lacking and they are really desperate to get into a top school.</p>
<p>I didn’t teach for long, but when I did, I saw tons of cheating, and I didn’t catch nearly all of it. But they all thought they were being very clever, when they really weren’t. If they cheat on tests, I suspect they’ll cheat on applications as well, just look how many questionable posts we get here that you know are just probing to see if they can get away with something. </p>
<p>HS students cheat, desperate ones approaching deadlines especially.</p>
<p>Sometimes, they even think that they have to cheat when it makes no difference. E.g. using SAT score choice on colleges whose stated policy is to superscore or require all scores.</p>
<p>Still, some colleges are not exactly setting a good example, like the ones which use the “what other colleges are you applying to?” question to determine if the applicant is using them as a “safety” so that they can reject or waitlist that applicant as one who is unlikely to matriculate (yield protection). Putting applicants in a situation where honesty can be harmful does not encourage honesty.</p>