Lying on AIF: Risky or Worth It for Engineering at Waterloo?

[tornzaer]

My friend applied to Waterloo for Mechanical Engineering. He didn't do any extracurricular activities, so he lied on the AIF. He says it's fine.

Will this result in trouble? Do they somehow approve it or is it fine.

 

[Cyrus]

I have a friend who cheated in school nearly his entire life (Diff major than me). Nice guy, but he now graduated, doesn't have a job, and did not get into grad school due to his bad grades. Cheating has a nice way of finding its way to screw you over later in life, BIG TIME.

I view it this way, if your going to cheat, I am not going to rat you out. But if you get caught I am not sorry.

 

[Moonbear]

I don't know how it's done anymore, or what Canadian schools do, but back when I applied to colleges, IIRC, many of them required forms from the school guidance counselor to verify the activities you participated in. In reality, if the ONLY thing he cheated on was claiming extracurricular activities he didn't do, as long as he didn't go overboard with it, I don't think it's any worse than the students who sign up for extracurricular activities just to be able to list them on their college applications, but who never really participate in them.

 

[tornzaer]

See, I told him not to do it, but he did anyway.

Have you ever heard of someone being rejected because of this?

 

[G01]

I have never heard of anyone being rejected because of this, but then again, I never really considered this situation. How are his grades? If his grades are good, they are probably going to spend less time thinking about his extra-curriculars.

Personally, I think this was a stupid idea on his part. Extracurriculars are not THAT important on a college app.

 

[jhicks]

Generally they don't check, as far as I know, unless he's in the running for a scholarship. I applied to a few schools and one was considering me for a hefty scholarship so they got in contact with my school's counselor to elaborate on the activities I was in (she told me about this later).

 

[Moonbear]

Have you ever heard of someone being rejected because of this?

No, but I've never heard of someone doing that before either. If caught, sure, he'll be rejected. He's just demonstrated his dishonesty...not a favorable attribute for prospective students. It would have been better to just be a boring person with no extracurricular activities.