How do colleges verify activities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale is checking by calling college counselors. UCLA is asking for random applicants to upload pdfs of W2 or paystubs to verify jobs. They are doing a lot more verifying this year

How can school counselor know your volunteer out of school?

They would know if they met with the student. If it's a big public school, bring it up in the counselor meeting and in the parent brag sheet. DC is at a public and did just this - he knew what the teachers would focus on in the LOR, so for any extra things that were important, he made sure to let the counselor know. He was accepted SCEA - of course, we don't know what exactly helped his application, but do your best with every part. Good luck!

Couldn’t kids just lie to counselor too? This doesn’t accomplish anything

Or in the essay.

[Anonymous]

If it's such an impact full thing, is your kid writing an essay about it or making a statement about it on their application? Or, getting a third reference letter (in addition to the 2 from teachers) from an adult that they volunteer with? That's what I would have my kid do

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale is checking by calling college counselors. UCLA is asking for random applicants to upload pdfs of W2 or paystubs to verify jobs. They are doing a lot more verifying this year

How can school counselor know your volunteer out of school?

They would know if they met with the student. If it's a big public school, bring it up in the counselor meeting and in the parent brag sheet. DC is at a public and did just this - he knew what the teachers would focus on in the LOR, so for any extra things that were important, he made sure to let the counselor know. He was accepted SCEA - of course, we don't know what exactly helped his application, but do your best with every part. Good luck!

Couldn’t kids just lie to counselor too? This doesn’t accomplish anything

Was thinking about the same thing.

School counselor will just take it at face value, no independent verification.
So the kid claimed that he:
did federal judge internship,
worked on construction jobs, and
coached younger kids for several seasons.

But in fact he did not. Any problem with that? No!
It's a honor system. Isn't it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Volunteering without impact will not have any weight in your application. Don’t worry about it.

He definitely has impact.

Then unless he's Batman, there will be another adult outside of this who could attest to this, and he could also document the impact. Should the activity get questioned, there would be evidence of it.

Well yes, obviously there are adults who know he does this. But there's no place on the app, as far as i can tell, to put a reference.

Many schools accept additional non-teacher recommendations. If the activity is that meaningful, that's likely a good idea beyond verification.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale is checking by calling college counselors. UCLA is asking for random applicants to upload pdfs of W2 or paystubs to verify jobs. They are doing a lot more verifying this year

How can school counselor know your volunteer out of school?

So true! Here is what I had my DD do….email the counselor telling him what she was doing outside school and connecting it to something they had spoken about. I copied the counselor when I emailed the adult at the outside org that DD was working with. Was plenty of “documentation” for the counselor to trust what DD said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Volunteering without impact will not have any weight in your application. Don’t worry about it.

He definitely has impact.

Then unless he's Batman, there will be another adult outside of this who could attest to this, and he could also document the impact. Should the activity get questioned, there would be evidence of it.

Well yes, obviously there are adults who know he does this. But there's no place on the app, as far as i can tell, to put a reference.

Many schools accept additional non-teacher recommendations. If the activity is that meaningful, that's likely a good idea beyond verification.

If the activity that that meaningful, get an article in the local newspaper.

[Anonymous]

I know some AOs do quick internet checks to verify participation. Easy to do. My friend’s daughter had a school teacher who was her club sponsor do a third recommendation.

[Anonymous]

It’s not unusual for top applicants to have unusual depth of interest and commitment. Sometimes the point of the interview is to verify things. So your son can discuss it there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know some AOs do quick internet checks to verify participation. Easy to do. My friend’s daughter had a school teacher who was her club sponsor do a third recommendation.

Exactly! I googled my DD when she applied a couple of years ago. Every single activity and award that she listed on her app came up in a search for her name. It was a bit bizarre to see all 10 activities there for some reason or the other (like if she mentioned a competition/award she participated in as part of a club, her name would show up on the competition website — not something we had control over, but it was evidence for each activity).

[Anonymous]

Yes! For Harvard in the Common App, they ask for web links - if there are any - to verify the awards listed in the application. You can probably do the same for ECs in the Additional Info section.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes! For Harvard in the Common App, they ask for web links - if there are any - to verify the awards listed in the application. You can probably do the same for ECs in the Additional Info section.

I did not know that. I’m the PP whose daughter had all 10 activities and honors mentioned online. She is at Harvard, but when she applied, we did not submit any links. So glad they added this!

[Anonymous]

Yes! My daughter also got into Harvard. I think only if you have links available, not required. And same - all of her ECs and awards were searchable on the internet. Congrats to your daughter!

[Anonymous]

Oops read too quickly PP. I realize your daughter is already at Harvard. Yes this must be a new feature in the Common App

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale is checking by calling college counselors. UCLA is asking for random applicants to upload pdfs of W2 or paystubs to verify jobs. They are doing a lot more verifying this year

How can school counselor know your volunteer out of school?

They would know if they met with the student. If it's a big public school, bring it up in the counselor meeting and in the parent brag sheet. DC is at a public and did just this - he knew what the teachers would focus on in the LOR, so for any extra things that were important, he made sure to let the counselor know. He was accepted SCEA - of course, we don't know what exactly helped his application, but do your best with every part. Good luck!

Same here, everything can be found by a quick google search. I don't know if AOs spend time googling each kid. I think some applications are just compelling, and they're familiar with the big awards, and some things just make sense in the big picture.

I also don't know why kids would lie. That seems like such a pessimistic view of this whole process. Also, anything off would probably immediately raise red flags.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale is checking by calling college counselors. UCLA is asking for random applicants to upload pdfs of W2 or paystubs to verify jobs. They are doing a lot more verifying this year

How can school counselor know your volunteer out of school?

They would know if they met with the student. If it's a big public school, bring it up in the counselor meeting and in the parent brag sheet. DC is at a public and did just this - he knew what the teachers would focus on in the LOR, so for any extra things that were important, he made sure to let the counselor know. He was accepted SCEA - of course, we don't know what exactly helped his application, but do your best with every part. Good luck!

Couldn’t kids just lie to counselor too? This doesn’t accomplish anything

Was thinking about the same thing.

School counselor will just take it at face value, no independent verification.
So the kid claimed that he:
did federal judge internship,
worked on construction jobs, and
coached younger kids for several seasons.

But in fact he did not. Any problem with that? No!
It's a honor system. Isn't it?

If these extracurriculars are legit there should be some record somewhere. For the high school program for federal judge internship there’s usually a public release each year mentioning the admitted students. That’s true for all high school programs that are even marginally relevant. Sports centers list their coaches and assistant coaches on their websites. Construction job may not have a public record, but I’d submit some kind of stub showing hours worked or wages earned.

I agree with the other posters that the applicants should provide links to substantiate their extracurriculars if possible.

If all activities have no way of being quickly verified, I’d find it very odd and it would raise a red flag.