Honesty is the Best Policy for the UC

The application process encourages you to put your best foot forward and that includes making sure you are honest within your application. I have been asked many times-Do they check? Yes, they do check. A recent article in the L.A. times demonstrates that honesty is the best policy.

The gray-and-green warehouse in suburban Concord seems an unlikely headquarters for a statewide detective operation, and the fact checkers at work there insist they are not mercilessly probing the lives of California’s teenagers.

Still, there is an element of hard-boiled sleuthing in the University of California’s unusual attempt to ensure that its 98,000 freshman applicants tell the truth about themselves and their extracurricular activities. The stakes are high; UC enrollments may be canceled if students are found to be evasive or lying.

Each year, a small number of UC applicants – fewer than 1% – are caught fibbing about such claims as performing a lead role in a school play, volunteering as a tutor for poor children or starring on the soccer field.

But UC officials say there is a broader purpose beyond the relatively few “gotchas”: to scare everyone else straight.

“We take the admissions process very seriously and we want to uphold the integrity of the whole process,” explained Han Mi Yoon-Wu, a coordinator in UC’s central admissions operations.