<p>I know this question's been asked before; I just can't seem to find the thread, so please excuse this new one.</p>
<p>My question: How do (if they do, that is) colleges verify that you've won a certain award? </p>
<p>Of course, there's no point in bluffing that you won Intel and the Siemens competition, since those are highly publicized as well as the genuine winners, but what about the lesser-known, localized awards?</p>
<p>My friend plays violin and won regional competitions first place every year. He wanted to know if colleges required documentation of his first places just to verify he wasn't just stealing "award titles" to put on his resume. I know someone asked a similar thing about Girl Scouts awards before.</p>
<p>The thing is - what happens if you can't verify the winner because that organization doesn't have a website that has a list of winners? Would colleges just directly call the head of the organization to verify that they've won?</p>
<p>Or is this all just one big honor code?</p>
<p>Kind of like your taxes - in that the IRS expects you to do them, but doesn't check everyone? But if you don't do your taxes and the IRS happened to investigate your taxes, you'd get into big trouble?</p>
<p>yes if someone could verify this, cuz I also need to know. I have won first place in a lot of localized competitions and some state but yea...I guess you could just fake the little stuff.</p>
<p>Kind of like your taxes - in that the IRS expects you to do them, but doesn't check everyone? But if you don't do your taxes and the IRS happened to investigate your taxes, you'd get into big trouble?"</p>
<p>True. Harvard's way of handling this is, for instance, if you lie and are caught, your acceptance will be rescinded. If you're already a student, you'll be kicked out. If you've graduated, your degree will be rescinded. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the kind of awards that would impress the top colleges that care about awards are easy to verify or will stand out like sore thumbs on one's application if one really didn't get them. The awards and achievements that are easy to fake aren't going to matter, just put one at risk of not getting in because of lying.</p>
<p>I'm an alum interviewer for an Ivy and have caught students in lies in their interviews. This included a student who greatly exaggerated the student's role in an organization that my S happened to be VP of and that I volunteered with. I had never seen the student at a meeting. When I asked "by the way question" if the student had ever met my S, the student had never heard of him. Gosh, it's darned hard to not know the very active VP of an organization that one claims to be very involved with. Later, when I asked S if he happened to know the student, he'd never heard of her.</p>
<p>Another example of a lie that I caught a student in was one who bragged about being honored to make a speech to a national convention. Sounded great until I asked follow-up questions and the student admitted that the speech was 5 minutes, and every student who was there got to make a "speech." It was no honor: The student attendees all were there because they happened to have parents attending a professional convention that happened to have a kids' program for the adults' kids. As part of the kiddie program, the students got speech instruction.</p>
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Meanwhile, the kind of awards that would impress the top colleges that care about awards are easy to verify or will stand out like sore thumbs on one's application if one really didn't get them. The awards and achievements that are easy to fake aren't going to matter, just put one at risk of not getting in because of lying.
<p>paco! The tax thing is a great analogy. Chances of getting caught during the application process are slim, but your app sits in the file FOREVER. You just never know how or when a lie could be uncovered, with dire consequences.</p>
<p>My D won top 12 in the nation for a film she wrote and co-directed. Her school GC mentioned it in her rec, as did a film teacher. It would help your friend to have these awards mentioned in recs. These recs basically back-up and confirm your stengths (and weaknesses).</p>
<p>Tell your friend not to exaggerate, it really doesn't help.</p>
<p>Yeah, he's not going to exaggerate or anything. He just wasn't sure if he needed to give any concrete proof of his awards and if not, was curious how colleges handled it.</p>