I think people who lie about early acceptances do it because the liar wants people to think they were rejected from a certain school, and be more likely to accept at other schools they applied to, which increases the liar's likelihood of getting in off the waitlist. For example, the person who did that at Emerson probably wants to go there, and knows that if someone thinks they were rejected from Emerson but got in at Ohio State, then they might accept Ohio State immediately, and when Emerson comes out, it will be a less competitive waitlist.
This seems pretty fucked up to me though, because as difficult as this process is, I like to think that writing well is enough, and that there aren't any games being played.
