Making up things in common app activities and awards

[Anonymous]

DS, senior, told us several people in his class have made up titles and awards on their common app; examples below. I’m pissed. He said it’s super common sadly.

- varsity tennis (co-captain); in reality just a member

- Model UN; delegate award

- environmental club; vice president

- food drive; organizer

It’s crazy right? I mean it’s not huge or the end of the world but….

[Anonymous]

Happening since the beginning of time. Not huge stretches and those aren’t things the colleges give much weight to anyway— not significant.

[Anonymous]

Varsity team member and varsity captain aren’t going to be distinguishing for AOs.

On so many of my kids Club and HS teams they don’t have a strict captain—a different kid wears the armband does the coin toss based on performance and character traits throughout the season. So pretty much 75% of team could say “co-captain”.

Is it really that different from saying you were Valedictorian when there were 200 other Valedictorians in your public HS class of 600 students.

[Anonymous]

As long as it is nowhere near George Santiago level.

The completely fabricated non-profits organized by parents are an entirely other level.

My kids are so honest they won’t even write down anything if it sounds remotely like a brag and scared of Chatgpt since their school is very very strict,

That said, AOs will sometimes look to verify things with the counselor.

[Anonymous]

^ Santos ! Autocorrect

[Anonymous]

the thing about this that makes me mad is when college AOs say, "We have people call our school to complain than X kid got in when Y kid did not. But the thing is, they don't know why they were admitted, they didn't see their application or read their essay. We know what we're doing. We dont make mistakes." (The Dartmouth dean says this a lot).

I'd never call a school to rat a kid out, but .. no, Dartmouth, you don't know a kid better than his/her classmates do. Some of these kids have known each other for 12 years .. and you spent 12 minutes reading their app. There are certainly things on the application that their classmates don't know, of course. But they also know that little Larla was not the lead author on that journal, did not start a NFP, didn't play varsity tennis, and did not organize the clothing drive that was the essay topic. There was no clothing drive.

THat's the part that bugs me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the thing about this that makes me mad is when college AOs say, "We have people call our school to complain than X kid got in when Y kid did not. But the thing is, they don't know why they were admitted, they didn't see their application or read their essay. We know what we're doing. We dont make mistakes." (The Dartmouth dean says this a lot).

I'd never call a school to rat a kid out, but .. no, Dartmouth, you don't know a kid better than his/her classmates do. Some of these kids have known each other for 12 years .. and you spent 12 minutes reading their app. There are certainly things on the application that their classmates don't know, of course. But they also know that little Larla was not the lead author on that journal, did not start a NFP, didn't play varsity tennis, and did not organize the clothing drive that was the essay topic. There was no clothing drive.

THat's the part that bugs me.

But these lies are also probably not going to make the difference in whether they get in or not.

(I agree that it's terrible for the kids to lie, and I'd never condone it. But I think people overweight the value of an individual element among their extracurriculars.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS, senior, told us several people in his class have made up titles and awards on their common app; examples below. I’m pissed. He said it’s super common sadly.

- varsity tennis (co-captain); in reality just a member

- Model UN; delegate award

- environmental club; vice president

- food drive; organizer

It’s crazy right? I mean it’s not huge or the end of the world but….

You ask for stupid shit and you get what you asked for. All these non-quantifiable BS that they ask for is nothing but a pile of do-doo. I wish everyone lies and make this meaningless. While they are at it, they should also have ChatGPT or someone else write their essays too..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS, senior, told us several people in his class have made up titles and awards on their common app; examples below. I’m pissed. He said it’s super common sadly.

- varsity tennis (co-captain); in reality just a member

- Model UN; delegate award

- environmental club; vice president

- food drive; organizer

It’s crazy right? I mean it’s not huge or the end of the world but….

What is crazy is your assuming this is true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the thing about this that makes me mad is when college AOs say, "We have people call our school to complain than X kid got in when Y kid did not. But the thing is, they don't know why they were admitted, they didn't see their application or read their essay. We know what we're doing. We dont make mistakes." (The Dartmouth dean says this a lot).

I'd never call a school to rat a kid out, but .. no, Dartmouth, you don't know a kid better than his/her classmates do. Some of these kids have known each other for 12 years .. and you spent 12 minutes reading their app. There are certainly things on the application that their classmates don't know, of course. But they also know that little Larla was not the lead author on that journal, did not start a NFP, didn't play varsity tennis, and did not organize the clothing drive that was the essay topic. There was no clothing drive.

THat's the part that bugs me.

But these lies are also probably not going to make the difference in whether they get in or not.

(I agree that it's terrible for the kids to lie, and I'd never condone it. But I think people overweight the value of an individual element among their extracurriculars.)

IDK, it's everything "interesting" about them. the GPA and the scores are the only thing that are harder to fake. and now test scores are over.

Activities section and essays can be super bullshit

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the thing about this that makes me mad is when college AOs say, "We have people call our school to complain than X kid got in when Y kid did not. But the thing is, they don't know why they were admitted, they didn't see their application or read their essay. We know what we're doing. We dont make mistakes." (The Dartmouth dean says this a lot).

I'd never call a school to rat a kid out, but .. no, Dartmouth, you don't know a kid better than his/her classmates do. Some of these kids have known each other for 12 years .. and you spent 12 minutes reading their app. There are certainly things on the application that their classmates don't know, of course. But they also know that little Larla was not the lead author on that journal, did not start a NFP, didn't play varsity tennis, and did not organize the clothing drive that was the essay topic. There was no clothing drive.

THat's the part that bugs me.

But these lies are also probably not going to make the difference in whether they get in or not.

(I agree that it's terrible for the kids to lie, and I'd never condone it. But I think people overweight the value of an individual element among their extracurriculars.)

IDK, it's everything "interesting" about them. the GPA and the scores are the only thing that are harder to fake. and now test scores are over.

Activities section and essays can be super bullshit

The things OP listed aren't that interesting. Anything truly interesting (national kazoo champion?) is probably also verifiable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the thing about this that makes me mad is when college AOs say, "We have people call our school to complain than X kid got in when Y kid did not. But the thing is, they don't know why they were admitted, they didn't see their application or read their essay. We know what we're doing. We dont make mistakes." (The Dartmouth dean says this a lot).

I'd never call a school to rat a kid out, but .. no, Dartmouth, you don't know a kid better than his/her classmates do. Some of these kids have known each other for 12 years .. and you spent 12 minutes reading their app. There are certainly things on the application that their classmates don't know, of course. But they also know that little Larla was not the lead author on that journal, did not start a NFP, didn't play varsity tennis, and did not organize the clothing drive that was the essay topic. There was no clothing drive.

THat's the part that bugs me.

Why are you so concerned about other kids’ applications that you have not seen. Your school sees the applications fyi so again so bizarre to even read this thread.

[Anonymous]

At my DC’s local private school you have to make an appointment to go over the common app line by line with your counselor before you can submit. They look closely at all awards, activities, etc. to make sure there is no lying. The counselors know the kids pretty well and will question them if they think an entry is false or exaggerated. The counselor also helped my DC rank and re-write the activity descriptions which was helpful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my DC’s local private school you have to make an appointment to go over the common app line by line with your counselor before you can submit. They look closely at all awards, activities, etc. to make sure there is no lying. The counselors know the kids pretty well and will question them if they think an entry is false or exaggerated. The counselor also helped my DC rank and re-write the activity descriptions which was helpful.

And after that session, go back home, update the activities section as you please before submitting. Why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my DC’s local private school you have to make an appointment to go over the common app line by line with your counselor before you can submit. They look closely at all awards, activities, etc. to make sure there is no lying. The counselors know the kids pretty well and will question them if they think an entry is false or exaggerated. The counselor also helped my DC rank and re-write the activity descriptions which was helpful.

And after that session, go back home, update the activities section as you please before submitting. Why not?

Exactly.

And we had to do that for a new award….