Student Reveals That Stanford Rescinded College Offer Months After Due To A ‘Lie’ On Her Application

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Stanford must have some kind of trained anti-fraud investigators on their admissions team. 20 years ago when I applied to Stanford Law I got a call from the head of admissions asking about why I had listed myself as “valedictorian” of my college class when my college didn’t do rankings. I was so panicked. My college had selected me as the graduation speaker from the top 5 GPAs (so I was told) and in my mind, giving the college commencement speech was being “valedictorian,” but I guess that was a misrepresentation. I had them talk to the dean of students at my college to verify that I was the commencement speaker. But that was a very sobering experience and since then I have been excruciatingly honest on all applications.

You guess?

At the time, I thought that “valedictorian” just meant the person who gives the speech (which I did). I didn’t realize it would be seen as a misrepresentation. I didn’t write down “first in the class” or anything like that.

Ummm, sure? You were "smart enough" to seriously apply to Stanford Law, yet not smart enough to know what a valedictorian is?

Not buying that

It’s a strange, reverse psychology justification. The person who finishes first in the class gets to give the speech…hence, if I am invited to give the speech I must be first in the class because that’s who is invited to give the speech.

I like it…you just need to sell it and never deviate.

She was never told she was first in the class nor was she told first in the class gives the speech. Such an odd story. Who told her top five were up for speech giving?

[Anonymous]

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"This high schooler in the state of Washington just had their offer to Stanford rescinded for lying about the hour count on their extracurricular activity section," Brandon explained.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for students on Stanford's waitlist who may now have an opportunity to attend the school due to someone's offer being rescinded, the student who this happened to was left upset by the entire ordeal.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?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
"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.

This is the best part. “She had to put” it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Stanford must have some kind of trained anti-fraud investigators on their admissions team. 20 years ago when I applied to Stanford Law I got a call from the head of admissions asking about why I had listed myself as “valedictorian” of my college class when my college didn’t do rankings. I was so panicked. My college had selected me as the graduation speaker from the top 5 GPAs (so I was told) and in my mind, giving the college commencement speech was being “valedictorian,” but I guess that was a misrepresentation. I had them talk to the dean of students at my college to verify that I was the commencement speaker. But that was a very sobering experience and since then I have been excruciatingly honest on all applications.

You guess?

At the time, I thought that “valedictorian” just meant the person who gives the speech (which I did). I didn’t realize it would be seen as a misrepresentation. I didn’t write down “first in the class” or anything like that.

Ummm, sure? You were "smart enough" to seriously apply to Stanford Law, yet not smart enough to know what a valedictorian is?

Not buying that

A valedictorian is a person who gives a valedictory speech.

[Anonymous]

When in doubt simply tell the truth. Trump is no role model despite his wealth and ex-US President status. The bigger the load the harder the fall!

[Anonymous]

If this woman embellished giggly on the Stanford application what about the other Ivy applications? I would automatically have concerns about issues like plagiarism and cheating in her academic studies. Students should strive to avoid the appearance of deceit as the problem may lead to unraveling like an onion. It's hard to reclaim sterling character once lost.

[Anonymous]

Embellished "bigly"

[Anonymous]

I don't believe it.

Here's why:

I recently taught at an international school in a highly corrupt developing country. The students and their parents cheated and lied like nothing I have ever seen, and college applications were crazy. The majority of parents paid local "college counsellor" agents to write their kids' college application essays for them, and to fabricate crazy profiles and activities for them. For example, kids who had gotten 2s on the AP Lang/Lit exams suddenly wrote novels and secured "literary agents" during the summer between junior and senior year, and the "college counsellors" got local media to interview the "authors" so there was Googleable material to back up the fake books (three out of about fifty graduating seniors had fake books written and publicized for them). Other students founded charities and built libraries in rural villages, which they suddenly claimed (and got paid publicity for) they had been working on for years.

I was SHOCKED that these kids actually got into great colleges. One of the girls whose parents paid someone to write and publicise a fake book for her got into Berkeley this year.

These kids lie and cheat in high school more than any students I have had anywhere else. And their AP scores are abyssmal (though admin changes their grades to whatever the rich and powerful parents demand, you can't argue with a string of 2s, right?).

College admissions teams know that exactly what the "college counsellors" do in that region of the world, and they must surely know that the books and charity work are fake. The application packages from these kids are so similar, so exaggerated, and so formulaic. Yet they are accepted into US colleges--sometimes Ivies--every year.

But of course they are full pay.

So this is how I know the system is rigged and college admissions are corrupt to a great extent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is fabricated by the guy (Tineo college prep consulting) to get TikTok clicks….

Oh noez, a fake person has lost her chance to be the next Elizabeth Holmes!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Stanford must have some kind of trained anti-fraud investigators on their admissions team. 20 years ago when I applied to Stanford Law I got a call from the head of admissions asking about why I had listed myself as “valedictorian” of my college class when my college didn’t do rankings. I was so panicked. My college had selected me as the graduation speaker from the top 5 GPAs (so I was told) and in my mind, giving the college commencement speech was being “valedictorian,” but I guess that was a misrepresentation. I had them talk to the dean of students at my college to verify that I was the commencement speaker. But that was a very sobering experience and since then I have been excruciatingly honest on all applications.

You guess?

At the time, I thought that “valedictorian” just meant the person who gives the speech (which I did). I didn’t realize it would be seen as a misrepresentation. I didn’t write down “first in the class” or anything like that.

Ummm, sure? You were "smart enough" to seriously apply to Stanford Law, yet not smart enough to know what a valedictorian is?

Not buying that

It’s a strange, reverse psychology justification. The person who finishes first in the class gets to give the speech…hence, if I am invited to give the speech I must be first in the class because that’s who is invited to give the speech.

I like it…you just need to sell it and never deviate.

She was never told she was first in the class nor was she told first in the class gives the speech. Such an odd story. Who told her top five were up for speech giving?

My high school was like PP: the valedictorian (and it was called valedictorian!) was chosen by the faculty from the five students with the highest GPAs who had attended 4 years at the school. They weren’t always the actual top of the class and ranks aren’t actually published so no one actually knew whether a given valedictorian was #1 or #5 in their year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Stanford must have some kind of trained anti-fraud investigators on their admissions team. 20 years ago when I applied to Stanford Law I got a call from the head of admissions asking about why I had listed myself as “valedictorian” of my college class when my college didn’t do rankings. I was so panicked. My college had selected me as the graduation speaker from the top 5 GPAs (so I was told) and in my mind, giving the college commencement speech was being “valedictorian,” but I guess that was a misrepresentation. I had them talk to the dean of students at my college to verify that I was the commencement speaker. But that was a very sobering experience and since then I have been excruciatingly honest on all applications.

did you get in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Stanford must have some kind of trained anti-fraud investigators on their admissions team. 20 years ago when I applied to Stanford Law I got a call from the head of admissions asking about why I had listed myself as “valedictorian” of my college class when my college didn’t do rankings. I was so panicked. My college had selected me as the graduation speaker from the top 5 GPAs (so I was told) and in my mind, giving the college commencement speech was being “valedictorian,” but I guess that was a misrepresentation. I had them talk to the dean of students at my college to verify that I was the commencement speaker. But that was a very sobering experience and since then I have been excruciatingly honest on all applications.

You guess?

At the time, I thought that “valedictorian” just meant the person who gives the speech (which I did). I didn’t realize it would be seen as a misrepresentation. I didn’t write down “first in the class” or anything like that.

Ummm, sure? You were "smart enough" to seriously apply to Stanford Law, yet not smart enough to know what a valedictorian is?

Not buying that

It’s a strange, reverse psychology justification. The person who finishes first in the class gets to give the speech…hence, if I am invited to give the speech I must be first in the class because that’s who is invited to give the speech.

I like it…you just need to sell it and never deviate.

She was never told she was first in the class nor was she told first in the class gives the speech. Such an odd story. Who told her top five were up for speech giving?

My high school was like PP: the valedictorian (and it was called valedictorian!) was chosen by the faculty from the five students with the highest GPAs who had attended 4 years at the school. They weren’t always the actual top of the class and ranks aren’t actually published so no one actually knew whether a given valedictorian was #1 or #5 in their year.

At my high school, the valedictorian was elected by the senior class from among the students with perfect GPAs. We had a lot of talent and no weighted grades. This was also called valedictorian in the program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Stanford must have some kind of trained anti-fraud investigators on their admissions team. 20 years ago when I applied to Stanford Law I got a call from the head of admissions asking about why I had listed myself as “valedictorian” of my college class when my college didn’t do rankings. I was so panicked. My college had selected me as the graduation speaker from the top 5 GPAs (so I was told) and in my mind, giving the college commencement speech was being “valedictorian,” but I guess that was a misrepresentation. I had them talk to the dean of students at my college to verify that I was the commencement speaker. But that was a very sobering experience and since then I have been excruciatingly honest on all applications.

You guess?

At the time, I thought that “valedictorian” just meant the person who gives the speech (which I did). I didn’t realize it would be seen as a misrepresentation. I didn’t write down “first in the class” or anything like that.

Ummm, sure? You were "smart enough" to seriously apply to Stanford Law, yet not smart enough to know what a valedictorian is?

Not buying that

It’s a strange, reverse psychology justification. The person who finishes first in the class gets to give the speech…hence, if I am invited to give the speech I must be first in the class because that’s who is invited to give the speech.

I like it…you just need to sell it and never deviate.

I was among the top 5 and the definition of valedictorian is “the student usually having the highest rank in a graduating class who delivers the valedictory address at the commencement exercises.” https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/valedictorian

Obviously I understood that this was a misstep when I got the call but I definitely wasn’t consciously lying. (And the Standord admin seemed to accept that.) But it certainly wasn’t as accurate as it should have been and I failed to consider that some people would think it was a misrepresentation. So yeah it was wrong and since then I engage in zero puffery on resumes, even wording that most people consider harmless.

Once I was also accused of lying about being fluent in Spanish in a job interview when the interviewer called his buddy and said (in Spanish) “I have this girl here who claims she knows Spanish” and when he hung up, I just calmly said “Oh, I guess you learned Spanish in Argentina” (nailed the accent he used.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think Stanford must have some kind of trained anti-fraud investigators on their admissions team. 20 years ago when I applied to Stanford Law I got a call from the head of admissions asking about why I had listed myself as “valedictorian” of my college class when my college didn’t do rankings. I was so panicked. My college had selected me as the graduation speaker from the top 5 GPAs (so I was told) and in my mind, giving the college commencement speech was being “valedictorian,” but I guess that was a misrepresentation. I had them talk to the dean of students at my college to verify that I was the commencement speaker. But that was a very sobering experience and since then I have been excruciatingly honest on all applications.

did you get in?

I got waitlisted. I went to a different Ivy with great financial aid and made law review 😃

[Anonymous]

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