As college admissions become ever more competitive, with the most elite schools admitting only 4 percent or 5 percent of applicants, the pressure to exaggerate, embellish, lie and cheat on college applications has intensified, admissions officials say. The high-stakes process remains largely based on trust: Very little is done in the way of fact-checking, and on the few occasions officials do catch outright lies, they often do so by chance.
Just one more reason that we should consider each person based on their merits and not overly focus on the hard luck/saddest stories. While it’s true that character is an important component of success, not every 17 year old has had a life changing moment.
A long, long time ago I was working with the person responsible for graduate student diversity outreach at the local Ivy. They flew a bunch of candidates in to wine them and dine them. One of the guys in this underrepresented minority group had the most northern European name possible, didn’t speak Spanish and had red hair and freckles but claimed minority status based on his mother having been born and raised in Puerto Rico. Didn’t matter that he had zero impact from being Puerto Rican in his own life. He checked off their “box” so, although it raised some eyebrows, it didn’t change his status as a recruited student. I always wondered if he was an imposter because that is a story that would be easy to make up and still have your facts line up.
@CTScoutmom I agree. It’s a lot easier to hide kids’ shortcomings academically for GCs and school administrators than to help them craft a persona that is not theirs.
The hardest thing for an adcom to verify is EC’s and non-school-based awards and achievements. Even awards for some school related achievements may not be kept account of by the school. They are probably not in any formal transit. Placed high in a statewide math competition? Won a state award in debate? Awarded a prize in a city art competition? Attended a summer intensive art program at the Art Institute of Chicago?
Where would any of those be kept in school records? The kid would likely report them in the college ap but suppose the reports were bogus?
I attended grad school with someone who said in his application that he was on the track and field team in college. Several months into our first year, the head of admissions met up with a coach from that college and happened to mention the student. The coach had never heard of him. After a phone call or two, the student’s lie was uncovered and he was asked to leave the program. Fast forward a few years…one of my classmates took a job with a large well-known Wall Street company. There was the ousted student, who had claimed to HR that he had earned his MBA with all of us. Oops! Caught in that lie, he was fired. I wonder where he is now…and what other lies he is telling!
The colleges have no one to blame but themselves, IMO. College admissions is chaotic and not transparent.
Regarding awards, we kept a running list starting in middle school. We scanned and made PDFs of certificate-type awards and took photos of trophies/plaques. It would be very easy to upload a file of the actual awards.
I disagree that it’s easy for counselors to somehow hide academic shortcomings. Standardized testing and AP scores are sent directly from the testing company.
Oh, noooo! Not another article where the experts quoted are pro college counselors!
The harder a kid tries to fake, the easier to slip. If the one kid had triumphed so after his mothers death, dont you think an adcom would look for reference to that in the GC letter? And if not there, dont you think 20 kids are lined up who have legit experiences?
Not enough kids, even top performers, applying to a tippy top, even get what the goals for a successful app really are. They assume.
chercheur, you are a very responsible parent. We kept similar records of our kids’ achievements. But if the school did not have such records, then the adcom wouldn’t have a confirmation of our data; or if someone falsely claimed awards the school wouldn’t serve as a check.
One of the colleges wanted our son to include a copy of a “graded essay” that he had written in a class in school. Fortunately, the kid found one in his backpack (and it was a good essay). But someone could fake that kind of thing.
There was a guy at my school who lied to get into John Hopkins. A bunch of extracurriculars that he DIDN’T do. They admitted him but raised eyebrows at his English score on the ACT (despite taking two AP English classes), so they had him take a literacy test before becoming officially enrolled. He didn’t pass the test, and didn’t go to John Hopkins.
What’s truly sad is the flawed admission process seduces some young people, who would otherwise be upright and honest, to cheat. The process that purports to find students of character damages the characters of some others. As more colleges doing away with more objective benchmarks, cheating is likely to become more widespread. That can’t be a good thing.
Unless the school and GC are part of the fraud like in the T.M. Landry case, academic fraud (aside from cheating) would be difficult to pull off. Official transcripts and test scores eventually get to the AO. It is the EC’s, awards and “fairy tale” essays that are hard to verify. I wonder how practical it would be for some schools to ask GC’s to verify EC lists and awards for accepted students as a condition of matriculation?
They wouldn’t know how yo fake this well, mackinaw. Nor do most pro counselors. Look at CC for examples of the misconceptions. And the overall faulty thinking that wouldn’t impress TT adcoms.
Never heard of a college demanding a literacy test after an admit, to enroll.
It’s not the process to blame for character issues. Sheesh. A kid eoul have been fine, if only he weren’t applying to HYPS? Really?
Try to understand just how many kids misread what it takes. Their embellishments are their own mistakes. Lol. Kid says he founded something. It doesn’t exist. Or it’s a one shot in another city. Or it clearly lists other kids as officers.
I fundamentally, vehemently disagree with this. Character is what you demonstrate when things get difficult. You either live by values, or make excuses that “the system made me do it” or “everyone else” is. This is a choice. Saying otherwise, that is what’s truly sad.
The admissions process seduces kids into cheating? Oh please. My local grocery store has the produce sitting out there for anyone to take. It’s up to every shopper to actually take their apple to the check out line and pay for it, rather than stuffing it into their purse. But sure- putting all that shiny fruit out front without an armed guard is seducing folks to steal rather than pay for it.
If a kid gets into a college that he doesn’t deserve, by embellishment, exaggeration, or outright cheating. Wouldn’t that encourage some others to follow suit? Doesn’t the admission process itself create this perverse incentive? Ever wonder why corruption is much more likely in places where there’s lack of transparency and clear rules?