Winter is a great season for skiing. The Beijing Winter Olympics also inspired 300 million people to enthusiastically participate in ice and snow sports.
However, when opening Xiaohongshu and searching for the keyword "skiing" to look for tips, the results are all uniformly handsome men and beautiful women wearing bikinis or showing off their abs.
In ski resorts with temperatures over minus twenty degrees, they nonchalantly pose, accompanied by a pretentious caption, packaging themselves as urban youth who love fashionable sports and handle a luxurious daily life with ease.
These bizarre behaviors make one question life, "Are we skiing on the same snow?"
In fact, incidents of over-packaging oneself for an online persona are not uncommon.
How Far Will They Go for a "Perfect" Persona?
Flirtatious Goddess Song Ji-ah Exposed for Wearing Counterfeit Designer Goods
By the law of internet attention conservation, explosive popularity inevitably attracts "flame wars," and netizens' favorite plot is nothing more than creating a god and then destroying them.
From a goddess everyone admired and imitated, to being mocked by thousands, Song Ji-ah only took 30 days to fall.
First, she was criticized for asking 600,000 yuan for an ad on Xiaohongshu, with people saying "She's too good at marketing—is Chinese money so easy to earn?"
Then, netizens dug up that the luxury items she wore on the show "Single's Inferno" were all fakes, and even every limited edition she previously posted on Instagram was counterfeit.
Before Song Ji-ah could utter more "pick-up quotes," her persona had already crumbled. The sight of her quickly rising to the altar and then falling is deeply regrettable.
Pretending to Be a Rowing Team Captain to Buy into a Top School
Many have probably watched the social documentary "Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal" on Netflix, which recreates the 2019 U.S. college admissions scandal.
One case in this scandal left many sighing. Olivia Jade, already a very successful YouTube vlogger in high school with millions of followers and the darling of the beauty world, had parents who were actors and fashion designers. Everything seemed perfect.
But her parents contacted the protagonist of the case, hoping to get their daughter into a prestigious school. Rick Singer had Olivia Jade pose on a rowing machine, getting her admitted to USC as a rowing team captain.
However, this raised doubts from Olivia's high school teacher, as she had no rowing habit prior to that.
Ultimately, the matter was unfortunately exposed. Olivia Jade lost her USC offer, and also lost everything she had, including fans, traffic... And her parents were charged and imprisoned.
The Penn Girl Who Got a Full Scholarship to Oxford by "Playing the Victim"
Recently, 24-year-old Mackenzie Fierceton, by relying on one essay, received an admission letter from Oxford University, and even won the highly competitive Rhodes Scholarship.
This was originally a very inspiring story, but subsequently Mackenzie Fierceton was anonymously reported by multiple students for "blatant fraud" in her essay.
When applying for undergraduate at UPenn, Fierceton described in her essay how she "survived abuse and foster care," detailing her mother's domestic violence against her and hospitalization after conflicts.
When applying for the Rhodes Scholarship, Fierceton claimed that she grew up in poverty, was the first in her family to attend university, and constantly moved between foster homes during childhood, lacking a sense of belonging. In such a "tough" upbringing, she achieved nearly straight A's, always struggling forward in the mire.
But the truth is, although her parents were divorced, Fierceton's mother was a highly educated radiologist, and she and her mother lived in their own large house.
Fierceton attended a private high school in St. Louis, Missouri, with annual tuition as high as $30,000. On her social media, one can see her participating in "high-end" activities like horseback riding and skydiving.
The contrast between her claimed and real experiences is way too huge...
"Over-packaging" will be exposed one day. In the real cases above, no one ended up with a good outcome. In today's study-abroad applications, admissions officers are increasingly valuing the authenticity of applicants' backgrounds, even verifying through multiple channels.
How University Admissions Offices Verify the Authenticity of Materials
Interviews: Detailed Questions Based on Essay Content
Especially starting from this year's study-abroad applications, universities are placing more emphasis on the interview process.
On one hand, a bunch of international students with GPAs below 3.0 submit applications with perfect scores in IELTS or TOEFL and GRE scores above 330. Previously, people did it secretly, but now with rampant proxy test-taking/essay-writing, even underachievers are coveting Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford.
On the other hand, the number of students going abroad for study in 2021 increased by about 50%, with applicant numbers in various countries/regions severely exceeding capacity. There are more students with homogeneous backgrounds, making it difficult for admissions offices to decide whom to admit.
Therefore, universities hope to identify the authenticity of backgrounds through interviews to further screen applicants. If your materials are suspected of being fake, you might not be able to withstand the admissions officer's barrage of questions!
Transcripts: Increasingly Strict Third-Party Mechanisms
Faced with frequent incidents of "academic dishonesty," universities are constantly seeking ways to assess students' true abilities. For instance, more and more universities are now requiring third-party verification of transcripts.
For example, the University of Miami's website clearly states:
"All applicants who have studied outside the U.S. must submit their official documents (transcripts, grade reports, certificates, exam scores, etc.) to WES or ECE for evaluation."
Recently, many students have received emails from the University of California, requiring them to submit documents to verify the authenticity of their application materials. Applicants need to upload valid materials before the deadline to complete verification and proceed to the next step.
In the U.S. alone, about one-third of graduate schools currently require non-U.S. bachelor's degree students to submit transcript verification.
Recommendation Letters: Verifying Recommenders via Phone and Email
Some universities will directly contact recommenders to verify applicants' background experiences.
If the school cannot reach the recommender at first, they will keep trying until the recommender responds.
If the recommender cannot be reached at all, the verification for the applicant will remain in a pending state. Many normal applicants have missed the review deadline and didn't get an offer because their recommenders don't frequently check emails or answer unknown calls.
Fake for a Moment, Fail Your Application Forever
Various fraudulent behaviors may seem like "shortcuts," but in reality, a moment of carelessness can ruin your education, and even your future!
It's not just about being denied an offer or having a degree revoked; you might also be directly blacklisted by the university, never allowed to apply to that school again.
Even worse, once discovered for fraud, other universities will also receive this information, and the "bad record" will have a hugely negative impact on future applications!
Moreover, it's not just admissions officers who are deceived by the perfect persona. When you over-edit every photo, craft every sentence, and fabricate every experience, you have already been imprisoned in the cage of falsehood.
This is a "time bomb" that could explode at any moment. Do not let it destroy your bright future.
