What prevents me from lying about stuff in my COLLEGE APPS

<p>if your lying on an application to most any state university, they will never find out plain and simple. okay we have 23000 applications here, lets google their activities and call their GC's!</p>

<p>ethics? maybe?</p>

<p>Yes, I have lied--not, you know, on legal documents or anything, but to my family and friends on occation.
But I wouldn't lie on a college application. I want to get in on my own accomplishments, my own merit. I want to know when I go to a college that I deserve to be there. It's partly moral, but partly it's just that I want to know the college wanted me for me, not for someone I made up.</p>

<p>Yes Magicman, but what we're talking about is lying under contract--essentially an oath.</p>

<p>This thread gives me ideas.</p>

<p>^lol all of these are bad ideas.</p>

<p>Your conscious will eat you up alive if you cheat. Morals friend. It seems like a joke now, but when you get accepted to that school, you will truly realize that you would feel fraudulent as soon as you contemplate going to that school.</p>

<p>Personal integrety I would hope!</p>

<p>"in my 17 years of life i've never encountered anyone that has as much integrity as everyone here pretends to have. unless you've never cursed/thought something bad about someone/insulted someone/lied about anything from as small as "i left my hw at home" when in fact you didn't do it, AND you've never made a mistake in your life than might have affected someone else besides yourself, then don't talk to me about having integrity."</p>

<p>I think it's really sad that not only would you claim to have no integrity, you are so cynical as to believe that nobody else has any either.</p>

<p>
[quote]
in my 17 years of life i've never encountered anyone that has as much integrity as everyone here pretends to have.

[/quote]
do you say that you've never lied at all in your life? Have you ever told someone you liked their shoes/hair/shirt etc. and you didn't? Have you NEVER asked for answers on HW from a friend? Have you EVER found money on the floor, even if it's a nickel, and did NOT hand it in to the police as you're supposed to? Is it so unbelievable to say that no, I don't think I've ever met someone who does not have absolute pure integrity, and I seriously doubt any of your are like this either. And no, I nowhere do i claim that i have no integrity. Geez. Your reading comprehension skills are what's sad.</p>

<p>^I'm not catching the connection here with CCer's self-proclaimed integrity.</p>

<p>I'm pretty sure that lying on a college app is on a different scale of integrity than lying about whether you like someone's shoes or something, and reading this thread I didn't catch anyone claiming to be perfect. </p>

<p>Imperfect integrity is not equivalent to having no integrity whatsoever, and people are perfectly within their rights to claim that lying on a college app would be a total ethical violation without being hypocritical.</p>

<p>I really hope people don't lie on apps too much, because that kind of sucks for those of us who don't.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I really hope people don't lie on apps too much, because that kind of sucks for those of us who don't.

[/quote]
I agree with you.</p>

<p>Okay, first of all i agree that nobody is entirely perfect, altho there are some people here who do claim to have absolutely integrity, which I highly doubt. </p>

<p>However, lying on college apps definitely does count as unethical. Sorry for any misunderstandings.</p>

<p>...what do you think of "blurring the lines" between truth and lies, tho? In a way that you won't ever be caught be frankly you weren't really lying? For example, if you put that you were the "captain" for a team...when really you were only captain for a week when the real captain was out...would that reallly be lying? Because you were the captain for a while.</p>

<p>^That's a definite grey area.</p>

<p>Personally, I think that if someone wrote that on their app, it's also unethical.</p>

<p>I mean, if you wrote "Captain," that looks the same as what the real Captain writes. And yet, you only did it for one week, whereas the real Captain probably worked really hard all year and maybe struggled to be an effective leader. You both look the same on paper, but is that fair?</p>

<p>...But this is coming from someone who has a vested interest in not getting beaten in the admit process, so yeah. xD All I know is that I would be pretty irked if someone else wrote "President of _____ Club" when they didn't really do it, because my experience of leading clubs has been fraught with difficulty and whatnot. (<-That sounds really over-dramatic now that I read it. xP)</p>

<p>I think the question the OP is asking is,</p>

<p>What prevents somebody from lying about stuff in their college apps IF they could do it without suffering much guilt? </p>

<p>All this conscience stuff... I respect your righteousness and all, but it doesn't really answer the question.</p>

<p>^I believe that the consensus on that was "not much, unless it's a huge thing that they can check."</p>

<p>eek that makes me so angry that people lie. i have seriously worked my butt off all college doing extracurriculars and stuff and trying to earn it, and then my friend lied about stuff on his... that just seems so unfair</p>

<p>yeah it does suck, because its like you spend 4 years dedicating yourself to a club and becoming president, and then all that friend had to do was just lift his pencil and was "president." Altho the experience of going thru that dedication and leading others interested in the same things as you is in itself more rewarding to having to put it on a college resume, anyways, and your friend is missing that crucial element. A lot of that type of leadership pertains to real life and careers, and if you lack that kind of social skills to the extent that you have to lie about having done things besides school in all 4 years of your life, then you will one day face the consequences. The consequences don't have to be outright and drastic, such as getting expelled or having apps rescinded; it could be small and gradual, such as not getting a raise, not getting good enough grades in college, not having many friends, etc. And those little things definitely happen and they definitely add up.</p>

<p>thats why colleges look at your recommendations. if none of them make any mention of your major achievements, they get suspicious</p>

<p>^So do they check, then? My recommendations didn't mention my achievements, so I hope they call and ask or something so they don't think I was lying. That would suck. >.<</p>

<p>i know teachers tht would lie for the students</p>