Do colleges even bother verifying applicants extracurricular activities?

[Anonymous]

Nope, nobody verifies – because unverified extracurriculars are insignificant and literally meaningless.

"Verified" = substantiated in online portfolio, written about by your recommenders, newspaper clippings, overall theme of you and your app.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. But if you claim something you didn’t do and get into a selective college your peers or their parents are likely to call the school and tell them. Kids get rescinded this way. There are only so many Ivy slots, and some parents are cutthroat to the extreme.

Well who would be dumb enough to tell their peers that they are lying on their college applications?

Most kids.

Never happened ever.

[Anonymous]

No, colleges probably don't verify.

And PS, job applications don't verify everything listed either.
You can tell your friends and family all kinds of untruthful things too, and likely no one would ever know.

[Anonymous]

Well until the college cheating scandal, even some of the finest universities were not verifying a sports recruit's background. I'm sure they are now.

So, the answer to your question is ...no they don't. But, it's really lame to lie about being captain of the key club or whatever.

[Anonymous]

If your school has an ethical college counselor, they will not allow your kid to list anything false.

[Anonymous]

They don't verify, but that just means that ECs listed on the common app don't matter that much. Being president of your high school Spanish club or editor of the school newspaper or a non-recruited middle distance runner is not going to be a factor at one of the extremely competitive colleges. All the applicants are over-scheduled busybodies. But, teacher recommendations that make specific, strong references to leadership and personal qualities (in addition to intellectual/academic prowess) do make more of an impression and are especially helpful to separate out students whose test scores and grades and essays about their grit and earnestness start to all look alike.

[Anonymous]

I read a story last year about a kid who wrote a note worthy essay about his mother's death and got into a "heard of" school. The school had to contact him for some reason and his mother answered the phone. Admission was retracted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read a story last year about a kid who wrote a note worthy essay about his mother's death and got into a "heard of" school. The school had to contact him for some reason and his mother answered the phone. Admission was retracted.

Wow

[Anonymous]

They don’t conduct an independent comprehensive verification on every app, no. But in part due to the cheating scandals, if anything at all raises even the littlest red flag, then they will. And if they find a problem such as a material misrepresentation or misleading submission, that kills the application. UVA’s admissions blog for the 2019 cycle noted that some admissions staff were extremely disappointed to have identified false statements, and that killed the application(s).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope, nobody verifies – because unverified extracurriculars are insignificant and literally meaningless.

"Verified" = substantiated in online portfolio, written about by your recommenders, newspaper clippings, overall theme of you and your app.

Exactly: they don't care about your 4 years of marching band. Making All-Eastern, on the other hand, speaks for itself.

[Anonymous]

I would imagine they google an occasional name to see if they are listed on a team..

[Anonymous]

Seems they do occasionally check on some significant claims. They do that when they feel the claims are a critical factor in their admission decision on you. They would typically reach back to your school if they think your school would be in a position to know, like if you led your school team to a state or seminational championship in some well regarded competition.
In any case, if the claims are significant they probably can find a way to check if they feel there is a need; if the claims are just so so, who cares, those mediocre EC activities have little impact on your application anyway. This is probably only true for the top schools as they have the resources to conduct this type of checking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. But if you claim something you didn’t do and get into a selective college your peers or their parents are likely to call the school and tell them. Kids get rescinded this way. There are only so many Ivy slots, and some parents are cutthroat to the extreme.

Well who would be dumb enough to tell their peers that they are lying on their college applications?

Most kids.

Never happened ever.

Yep. Happened at Maggie Walker Governor’s school in Richmond a few years ago. A student told on kids for cheating to their accepted colleges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. But if you claim something you didn’t do and get into a selective college your peers or their parents are likely to call the school and tell them. Kids get rescinded this way. There are only so many Ivy slots, and some parents are cutthroat to the extreme.

How would your peers and their parents even know what you put in your application?

+1

Some parents in our HS wouldn't even list their kid's college destination out of this kind of paranoia -thinking that other parents are as mean as they are. Colleges know damn well who is making trouble for someone else.

I would not however, advocate lying on your application.

My kids (not TJ ) NOVA HS recommends kids keep there college app list to themselves, in part because of this dynamic. It’s a real thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. But if you claim something you didn’t do and get into a selective college your peers or their parents are likely to call the school and tell them. Kids get rescinded this way. There are only so many Ivy slots, and some parents are cutthroat to the extreme.

Well who would be dumb enough to tell their peers that they are lying on their college applications?

Most kids.

Never happened ever.

Happened at TJ last year. A kid apparently lied about race and didn’t hide the fact. Also was admitted to a top 20 ED and kept an Ivy app in. And told people. Was then accepted at the Ivy. It was all over the TJ Vents and student FB pages and the big school scandal. Droves of kids and parents of kids denied by the Ivy were calling and complaining about the ED app. And calling the ED school and complaining about misrepresenting race.

It’s unclear whether the Ivy officially rescinded. But the kid did not end up there and it was clearly the first choice. Not sure what happened with the ED school.

Never underestimate the lack of discretion displayed by kids hanging out with friends.

So, that’s once lying about apps was called out by “friends”.