<p>Hi. A friend informed me that a "rival" with ill-intentions sent my Facebook pictures of me drinking to various colleges by email and told them my name, etc. and then with the message not to accept me when I apply. </p>
<ul>
<li><p>I have taken down the pictures since last year but it seems she got to them before I deleted them... </p></li>
<li><p>It was in a different country where it was legal for me to drink.</p></li>
<li><p>I was with family although they're not shown in the picture.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>How would the college verify that the pictures really depict you? You probably didn’t send a photo with your app right? I don’t think colleges would pay attentions to some random person sending them pictures supposedly showing current applicants…</p>
<p>Jesus christ, what an absolute b***h. The good thing is if you’re applying for Fall 2012, I highly doubt the admissions office is honestly going to keep a note around for the next year reminding themselves to reject a “Jane Doe” when she applies. Remember they have tens of thousands of applicants, so they can’t keep track of things like that. If you were applying this year, I’d say you should email the colleges preemptively and say “I was recently made aware X sent a photo of me drinking, but just so you know I was in a foreign country where it was legal, with family, and I do not drink outside of that”.</p>
<p>Yeah, seriously, if they went ahead with a stupid plan like this - it would amount to nothing. College applications happen in such mass numbers that it’s way too impersonal for things like this to matter enough. They aren’t going to take the effort to verify these accusations nor try for find some way to include this in making decisions. They try to get “personal” through your essays and stuff but this isn’t the kinds of things they use in deciding.</p>
<p>If they even take any notice whatsoever, they’ll contact you about first. Because if they’re going to make a special case to reject you because of information they don’t traditionally use, they’ll take the time at least to let you defend your self (the same way you can defend yourself if you’ve been suspended, caught cheating, etc).</p>
<p>But honestly, I’m sure this happens to a few people every year and I’m sure that the admissions comittee will be more surprised by the pettiness of the person who sent the e-mail (because I can’t imagine a way someone could phrase an e-mail including something like this while sounding genuine or sincerely concerned) than by the content of the e-mail.</p>
<p>Don’t sweat it, do they even know what schools you applied/are applying to? There’s no way they could send it to all 2000+ schools in the US.</p>
<p>I think she sent it to the major Ivy schools that she knew I’d definitely be applying to.</p>
<p>Thanks, guys. Now that you guys mention it, it would probably be unlikely that they’d take it seriously or act on it without further checking up on it.</p>
<p>TL: I wouldn’t place any worry to it. But can you imagine how discouraging it would be to be the admissions officer receiving vitriol like this from obviously hateful people? Sheesh. I’d just want to wash my hands if I got stuff like that.</p>
<p>Just to add on to what the guys above me said, there’s no absolute way of confirming whether or not the picture was photoshopped or whether or not it was really you in that picture.</p>
<p>This is hilarious (but very, very terrible). I don’t think anything will happen to you (honestly, what you did was defensible, and if you’re ultimately rejected for this, you can easily explain everything), but if they track down the e-mail address, your rival will be in deep trouble. Indeed, if you want to get back at him/her, you could report this incident to the colleges that he/she applied to.</p>
<p>Yeah, don’t worry. Colleges are not going to care at all unless they’re super-conservative and/or Christian. Some of the more liberal colleges might even consider it favorable that you are exploring other countries’ cultures:)</p>