Lying your way into college
Soccer. Volunteering. Babysitting. Improv. Jobs. Girl Scouts.
Maddy Meier, a junior, partakes in a plethora of activities in addition to keeping up her grades in multiple Advanced Placement courses.
“A lot of the things I do are because I enjoy them and am passionate about them, but I don’t think I would be doing as much if it didn’t increase my chances of being accepted to colleges,” said Meier.
But is there any real way to know when one is lying about their extracurricular and club involvement?
Meier said, “People definitely do embellish their activities on applications, but I don’t know that there’s a way for colleges to prevent that.”
A large part of what distinguishes one applicant from another is their personality on paper - colleges want to see what one did outside of their standard academics.
According to College Board, “Your accomplishments outside the classroom show what you’re passionate about and that you have qualities valued by colleges.”
Colleges want to see a well rounded student - someone who excels not just in academics, but has interests and involvement in school, team, and personal activities as well.
Being well rounded implies some mixture of campus involvement in clubs or groups, performing arts, sports, volunteering, summer programs, jobs, or some other activity outside of school.
“Extracurriculars should be pretty important for colleges to take into account because they help judge the merit of a student rather than just their grades. If a student can balance lots of extracurricular activities while achieving good grades and doing well in school, they can use those skills later in life and will probably be successful in college and beyond,” said Meier.
Because there is no real way to validate the accuracy in every applicant's extracurricular activity, there is the possibility that some students lie or embellish their resumé.
Activities Director and Swim Coach Jim Kelly said that he had never been contacted by a college to verify a student’s application.
Kelly added that, “I suspect there are a lot of clubs we have that get approved at the beginning of the year and never meet, and just do it to put on the college resume.”
For students who don’t partake in activities outside of school, there is pressure to find a way to still stand out on applications.
“Most of my friends do sports or clubs and I think my grades are okay, but when I was applying to college I felt like I needed an extra push that I didn't have,” said senior Elanna Vital.
However, Vital had a strong opinion on the aspect of dishonestly when applying to college.
“I don't think people should embellish their applications; [college] is a new start so you shouldn’t be starting with lies, and I feel like colleges always have a way to tell if you're lying anyways,” said Vital.
According to the January 2017 University of California's Counselor and Advisory Bulletin, “Students randomly selected to verify information in their application were notified by the end of Dec. 2016...Failure to respond to the request by the deadline will result in cancellation of the application.”
Even with the massive numbers of student who apply to colleges across the country every year, there are measures taken to make sure that applications are true reflections of the student.
Guidance Counselor Ross Yokomura said that he had one college contact him to verify a letter he had written on a student’s behalf, in which he had said something about the student’s family that was later countered in the student’s own essay.
“That was the only call I’ve ever gotten to verify an application in 19 years [of being a counselor], but it did show me that they really are reading these applications,” said Yokomura.
Although it may be impossible to ensure the validity of extracurriculars listed in every application, there is still immense value in them being listed in applications and taken into consideration.
Vital said, “Even though i didn't do any extracurricular activities, some people may not be as good at academics, so if they're good at sports or something that should be brought to light.”
Extracurriculars continue to be a necessary, albeit flawed, portion of the application, as they allow colleges to see the full student, beyond just a GPA or SAT score.