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Thinking about adding 10 points to your SAT score on your  

College Application

 ? Boosting your GPA a few tenths of a point? Saying you were a member of the Key Club, even though you only attended two meetings? The temptation to embellish or even flat-out lie on College applications is one that's getting the best of more and more high school students. But beware -- admissions officers are quickly wising up to this tall-tale trend.

"A five- to 10-page resume of accomplishments is likely to inspire more suspicion than positive impressions," says David Lesesne, dean of admission and Financial aid at Sewanee: The University of the South (Sewanee, TN). "We find that we're having to do a lot more fact-checking than we once did."

And with good reason. College Application misrepresentation is on the rise, and Lesesne is seeing it firsthand. He recalls one student who, on his resume of achievements, claimed to have completed research at a university. It turns out "research" meant he had spent an hour or so reading in the school's library. Boldfaced lies are bound to get you nowhere, but even a "harmless" tweak of your college application will likely get detected by admissions officers. "We have a fairly meticulous process for reviewing applications, and we fact-check class rank, GPA, test scores, and recommendations," says Daniel Bowers, senior associate director of admissions at Widener University (Chester, PA). "If a student submits an essay and it looks like Shakespeare wrote it, we'll know something is up."

Last time we checked, most admissions officers weren't born yesterday. "Ultimately, we have no way of proving one way or another if someone was an Eagle Scout, or won a presidential award, or things like that," says Bowers. "But when students submit a resume with an awful lot of achievements, we make it a point to explore that during an interview with the student. Very often we'll find out, for example, that the Meals on Wheels community service he or she did was actually just for one day."

That's one reason why some schools, like the University of Denver (Denver, CO), conduct mandatory personal interviews for admission. Between admissions officers, alumni, and faculty, nearly 4,000 interviews are administered in 27 cities around the country -- all for the purpose of truly getting to know the applicants.

And that's the whole point. Colleges want to admit students who are the best fit for their schools, which is why being truthful on your college application is the best route -- for you and the school.

Plus, if you have something in your education past that you're less than proud of (failing a class, being dismissed from a school, etc.), it's best to put it on the table early. Your transcript is the ultimate tattletale, so fessing up to both the good and the bad is in your best interest. "Honesty is the best policy," says Bowers. "Be as accurate as you can be. Don't do anything to jeopardize getting into the school of your dreams."

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