Do colleges verify extracurriculars?

Answered

If you are applying to Ivys and Elites where the admit rates are 5%, then definitely because they only want to give out seats to those that are the best fit for them, and it's a complete embarrassment for them to admit someone who has lied on their application. It's true there are people attending Harvard and MIT right now that perhaps padded their ECs or outrighted lied about them. However, these cohorts have a target on their backs. If they ever get caught, they may find themselves in a lawsuit having to pay back their tuition and having their degree rescinded, and having their entire file expunged from the archives forever as if they never stepped a foot on campus. The harder the school is to get into, the greater the scrutiny will be with your application file and fact-checking. So someone might get away with a lot of falsifying at a CalState Chico or ASU because their admit rates are 72-85%. It's not a big deal to them if you are an A student and made up 1/2 your ECs. They are happy to have you.

My litmus test is to Google or Bing yourself and sees how many ECs and significant awards and honors show up in the first couple pages of results. In my case, I can honestly say that 80% of my 10 ECs, awards, honors show up one after the other. My graduation speech even came up. If yours don't show up, that to me is a red flag or yellow flag. That means when the AO Googles you, you will be a mystery to them and what to do more digging to verify things, either by calling up your HS counselor directly, your Varsity Swim Coach, and possibly your employer. (The caveat is for Int'l students because you might not have social media or the same level of having an online presence in your country. In that case, make sure your HS counselor has a resume of all your facts, activities, awards, and honors so that when they recommend you, they can advocate and back up your credentials in writing.)

I completely understand that the current college admissions playing field is the very most competitive one ever in the history of college admissions. And during the past 550 days, it's been extremely hard for some applicants to find impressive ECs to pursue and excel at. If anything a very common question on CV, is "since COVID-19, my school, my city, my state, my country has shut down, and made it hard for me to pursue ECs, what should I do?" So the temptation is clearly there since there are kids that might be attending well funded private schools that have no really been affected at all by COVID-19, in fact, it's open hunting season for them since there is no global competition to do interesting things as ECs as long as their school, and parents can fund and support these activities. So my general advice is to be accurate, meticulous, and honest because AOs can smell BS 10000 miles away. The risks you take, either by lying or falsifying ECs, awards, honors, and your essays can be extremely dangerous if you are found out.

I'll give you a couple of examples. In the US, if you say you won the Gates Scholarship, are a US Presidential Scholars, or won the State Class 5A title in the 200M backstroke, all that is easily verifiable with a couple of keystrokes. And as I've mentioned, you can just google your name and school and see that there should be an "apples to apples" match on who you are. Now if you are a Chinese National applying to Ivy League schools from Beijing, most AOs fully expect such applicants to falsify essays, grades, ECs, and a whole litany of other atttributes because, in China, it is well known that there is a high level of corruption among college prep pay for services and the like. So for a Chinese national, it might make sense to attend pay to play summer programs offered by Brown, Harvard, MIT, Notre Dame because they can at least see if the applicant successfully earned an A grade for attending and having something tangible in hand to compare it with the rest of the application.

While we all know that cheating exists both at the HS and College level, (something like 75%=85% has admitted to cheating at some point), cheating or lying on your college application is especially dangerous. If you cheat on your online AP test, the results can only be as good as the person helping you cheat and the benefit is only incremental to your overall academic record. If you get caught by the college board, perhaps they will just give you a ZERO. But if you get caught with falsifying your ECs like Olivia Jade on her USC application, like saying you were a National level Coxwain on a Club Crew Team, you can easily find yourself in the middle of a giant mess. If you get caught after you matriculate, that can lead to an automatic expulsion and they'll have no problem wiping you off all records as if you never stepped foot on campus.

For some desperate folks, that might be a risk worth taking so the final decision has to be your own.

Good luck.