How to write activities Penn admissions will trust

TThe University of Pennsylvania has no formal system for fact-checking applications, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported in 2019, and with tens of thousands of applicants, officials and former officers agreed that one would not be feasible. When something did look wrong, the check was usually a call to the school counselor or an email to the applicant.

Many families build a comfortable belief on this: because no college can verify every hour and every title, a little rounding up is free. The first half of that belief is accurate. The trouble with the second half is easy to miss, because a family never learns which line in the file gave a reader pause.