Student Reveals That Stanford Rescinded College Offer Months After Due To A ‘Lie’ On Her Application

[Anonymous]

I wish we were more like Europe - national exam based admissions and GPA. All this pressure for kids to change the world or be an impossible best for college admission.

[Anonymous]

Character is global. As in the US, Europeans are not immune to deceit, embellishment and lies. Moving to Europe does not solve problems related to character!

[Anonymous]

I suspect Stanford simply led with the "tip of the iceberg" revelation; leaving other juicy "surprise" tidbits for the potential legal battle ... should one ensue. The student likely knows this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would they check this AFTER accepting her? That doesn't make sense

Sometimes friends who learn of a classmates acceptances make anonymous calls to report such falsifications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would they check this AFTER accepting her? That doesn't make sense

Sometimes friends who learn of a classmates acceptances make anonymous calls to report such falsifications.

I genuinely hope this post is as fake as the OP's.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:She was left distraught after learning that a simple embellishment on her college application had cost her a place at Stanford.

"This high schooler in the state of Washington just had their offer to Stanford rescinded for lying about the hour count on their extracurricular activity section," Brandon explained.

He pointed out that while this may be good news for students on Stanford's waitlist who may now have an opportunity to attend the school due to someone's offer being rescinded, the student who this happened to was left upset by the entire ordeal.

For a few of her different extracurriculars, a lot of the hours that she put down on the application were looked into thoroughly by the university back at the beginning of the year when they were initially reviewing her application. However, the school didn't get an answer from the people they'd contacted back when they first inquired.

"A lot of her extracurriculars looked impressive, so it's not a surprise that Stanford still went ahead and offered her admission," Brandon continued.

"But one of the activities that she had placed on her list was volunteering at a daycare for children with special needs.
For that specific activity, she had to put that she had been working there 12 hours a week for 32 weeks per year. When Stanford contacted the daycare, they learned that the student was only a summer volunteer and did 12 weeks a year for 4 hours at a time. Once Stanford learned about the lie, they immediately revoked her application.

The best way to avoid this kind of situation is to avoid lying or embellishing the truth on an activity section for a college application since there are easy ways for a school to verify that information, and once they verify it, then it becomes a huge mess. In a follow-up video, Brandon shared tips for students who are worried about colleges thinking they're lying about their extracurricular hour count.

https://www.yourtango.com/self/stanford-rescinded-students-acceptance-lied-application

Good.

Stop lying on applications.

Parents: set a good example for your kids.

Or.. don't be specific in your EC section.. "Worked at local food banks - 10 hours a week; Web design work for a local nonprofit - 20 hrs a week during summer". Let Stanford verify that!

The activity section of the Common App requires the following for each activity

- Checkbox for grade level
- Checkbox for Timing of participation (__During school year __During school break __All year)
- Hours spent per week ___
- Weeks spent per year ___

If the story in OP is true (which I doubt), the student should simply have checked "During school break" and then correctly completed hours and weeks.

Say a student volunteers at a food bank all year. She volunteers 4 hours a week during school years but during summers (freshman summer, sophomore summers and junior summer) she volunteers 12 hours a week. How should she input this in common App? Does she average the hours per week for 12 months?

One way to do it is to enter it as two different items (one a summer thing and one a school-year thing). But I agree this is really challenging in practice. Take Boy Scouts, for instance. There is one weekly meeting of 90 minutes. Plus once a month there is a camping outing that is likely about 40 hours (although maybe 12 of that is sleeping), which kids may attend 75% of the time. Then when kid has an elected position (which is on a 6 month cycle and likely wouldn't be every year of HS), there is a planning meeting that is 90 minutes twice per month or something like that. And then some other random hours outside of that doing additional prep work for badges, etc. I guess you could just round and do something like 8 hours a week during the school year because it probably averages out to that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would they check this AFTER accepting her? That doesn't make sense

Sometimes friends who learn of a classmates acceptances make anonymous calls to report such falsifications.

I genuinely hope this post is as fake as the OP's.

Honestly, I don't really blame the kids for wanting to report the kids who everyone knows just blatantly lied. So many kids work so hard and are honest, it is really aggravating to see the cheaters prosper.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would they check this AFTER accepting her? That doesn't make sense

If I read this correctly, they didn't. She submitted the application. They sent out checks to various references in her application including the school she said she volunteered at. The school did not reply in the window during which they asked and so Stanford took her at her word and sent her an acceptance. After the acceptance, the school finally replied and they saw the completely misrepresented hours and realized that she had made a small summer volunteer opportunity (of 48 hours) into a major volunteer activity (384 hours).

The difference between 12 hours/wk @ 32 weeks and 4 hours/wk @ 12 weeks is HUGE. This isn't an embellishment. That would be 4 hours/week at 16 weeks or 6 hours/week at 12 weeks. But this is complete and downright dishonesty and really shows that this candidate has a real lack of integrity and a candidate that a school of good repute like Stanford does not want. She got what she deserved and now a more deserving candidate from the wait list will get the opportunity.

[Anonymous]

They don’t verify anything. I know plenty of pathological liars who got into ivies with totally fake bios. Just like all the PPP fraudsters. Nobody ever gets caught. Nobody cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would they check this AFTER accepting her? That doesn't make sense

If I read this correctly, they didn't. She submitted the application. They sent out checks to various references in her application including the school she said she volunteered at. The school did not reply in the window during which they asked and so Stanford took her at her word and sent her an acceptance. After the acceptance, the school finally replied and they saw the completely misrepresented hours and realized that she had made a small summer volunteer opportunity (of 48 hours) into a major volunteer activity (384 hours).

The difference between 12 hours/wk @ 32 weeks and 4 hours/wk @ 12 weeks is HUGE. This isn't an embellishment. That would be 4 hours/week at 16 weeks or 6 hours/week at 12 weeks. But this is complete and downright dishonesty and really shows that this candidate has a real lack of integrity and a candidate that a school of good repute like Stanford does not want. She got what she deserved and now a more deserving candidate from the wait list will get the opportunity.

Unlikely as Stanford's yield may have been higher than expected. Even Stanford accepts more students than it can handle as yield is not 100%.

[Anonymous]

This was the right call by Stanford. Since they don't have any shortage of over qualified students, they don't need to compromise by taking someone who lied on a sworn application just to look like more of a grinder.

The sad thing is that this kid, if she'd been honest on her application, might have been admitted anyway with the true hours she worked.

People have truly lost the plot in the arms race for over the top qualifications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would they check this AFTER accepting her? That doesn't make sense

Sometimes friends who learn of a classmates acceptances make anonymous calls to report such falsifications.

I genuinely hope this post is as fake as the OP's.

Honestly, I don't really blame the kids for wanting to report the kids who everyone knows just blatantly lied. So many kids work so hard and are honest, it is really aggravating to see the cheaters prosper.

First of all, how would they "know"? How many applications have you seen other than your own kids?

Second of all, you damned well SHOULD blame them. It's not their job, especially since they are just speculating. It's bitter, destructive, and for those that believe in karma, destined to come back to them x10. While I have no evidence, I doubt such behavior influences adcoms much, especially from anonymous teenagers.

I am not defending lies, or even embellishment, but anyone who has done this - it is DISGRACEFUL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would they check this AFTER accepting her? That doesn't make sense

Sometimes friends who learn of a classmates acceptances make anonymous calls to report such falsifications.

I genuinely hope this post is as fake as the OP's.

Honestly, I don't really blame the kids for wanting to report the kids who everyone knows just blatantly lied. So many kids work so hard and are honest, it is really aggravating to see the cheaters prosper.

First of all, how would they "know"? How many applications have you seen other than your own kids?

Second of all, you damned well SHOULD blame them. It's not their job, especially since they are just speculating. It's bitter, destructive, and for those that believe in karma, destined to come back to them x10. While I have no evidence, I doubt such behavior influences adcoms much, especially from anonymous teenagers.

I am not defending lies, or even embellishment, but anyone who has done this - it is DISGRACEFUL.

I don't see how this is a bad thing. Liars should not get away with their tricks. The application process sucks because of how much we allow cheaters to say whatever they want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people embellish hours.
Difference btw 2 and 3 hours a week? If you include travel time…

Travel time is legit. If you have to drive an hour to volunteer, that's 2 hours out of your day when you could have been doing something else. During COVID I remember kids had to travel really far to get time on ice, fields, pools, etc to practice, otherwise they'd have had to quit the sport. The time traveling is a part of the process. Just like kids who mention how far they travel to go to a specific school.

There really should be more guidance on how to answer this though to help get more uniformity.

Hmmm. We were told not to include travel time, bc everyone has to "travel" to do a variety of activities. It doesn't count as the actual activity.

It depends. Not all travel is the same. For example, if the place is remote and that's why volunteers are needed, travel is a part of the service.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would they check this AFTER accepting her? That doesn't make sense

Sometimes friends who learn of a classmates acceptances make anonymous calls to report such falsifications.

I genuinely hope this post is as fake as the OP's.

Honestly, I don't really blame the kids for wanting to report the kids who everyone knows just blatantly lied. So many kids work so hard and are honest, it is really aggravating to see the cheaters prosper.

They wouldn't be in any sort of position to know what was in the application, though. Sheesh with you people.

Not to mention only the worst sort of shitbird would do such a thing and if you think that's acceptable behavior, you're a complete shitbird too.