SAN JOSE, Calif. — Starting next year, the University of California system will begin spot-checking students’ claims about their accomplishments and personal circumstances, an attempt to discourage them from embellishing or lying on their applications as competition for admission increases.
It’s an effort to face concerns that some students may exaggerate their achievements or fabricate hardship stories because getting good grades and test scores is no longer enough to guarantee admission to the most popular University of California campuses. The verification program is believed to be the first such formal effort in the nation.
Students applying for admission in fall 2003 will be the first class to have their veracity routinely tested. Currently, individual campuses check high school grades after the senior year and any obviously suspicious statements. But beginning in January, an undetermined number of the system’s freshman applicants will be asked to provide support for claims about such things as activities outside the classroom, personal achievements and obstacles overcome.
David Barden, 18, a senior at California’s Los Gatos High School who is in the thick of the college-application process, said he welcomes fact-checking. The pressure to get into a “good” school is intense, he said, and students might fudge the truth because they think they haven’t done enough or think everyone else is doing it.
“It would just make people think twice about lying on their applications,” he said. “It makes a more even playing field.”
Although concern about student resume inflation is an issue nationally, the University of California may be the first system to take formal steps to root out the problem, said Judy Hingle, director of professional development for the National Association of College Admissions Counselors.