Colleges hovering around these forums

<p>Do you guys ever have a strange feeling that colleges look you up on these forums and base their admission decision off of what you post or seem like as a person? I mean... I've already found three people that go to my neighboring school who use College Confidential, so if a college has your WHOLE PROFILE, what's stopping them from looking you up here? O_o... </p>

<p>1/ Admissions Officers do not have that much time on their hands.
2/ You should not post anything that would make you identifiable anyway.</p>

<p>How would anyone identify you on here? You can just deny it anyway; they have no proof it’s you even if the name resembles something similar.</p>

<p>Well, if a “chance thread” is a pretty much exact copy of the application an admissions officer is holding, why wouldn’t they want to check out your profile? I mean… If someone said, “I want to go to X college because I think I’ll be able to make bank,” that might end up pretty bad. Regarding the time they have… True, for the most part, I think they won’t have time to do that thorough of a search, but at a few seminars I went to, some application readings take days before they make a final decision.</p>

<p>"but at a few seminars I went to, some application readings take days before they make a final decision. " Since this is the amount of time needed, where would they find the EXTRA time to trawl around a site like this? </p>

<p>Frankly, it’s not as if they’re looking for Flight 370. They make their decisions and they move on. It’s not an exact science and they know it.</p>

<p>It’s not like some company’s HR department where after interviews, you’re down to 2 or 3 candidates. Google those people’s names? You bet. College applicants? No way. Too much time for almost no return. </p>

<p>@T26E4‌ Good point! I guess this would fit more in a “what if” game now that you guys pointed it out.</p>

<p>The worst possible scenario is someone turning you in to an admissions office if you post something less than glowing about the school or yourself and it’s pretty easy for someone to identify you. (Obviously more a Facebook than CC problem.) That’s pretty rare, but given all the students and all the schools out there plus all the stupid things people post online - it does happen on occasion. Adcoms admit they rarely look for stuff, unless they happen to be trying to confirm something and stumble across other things, but a few times a year at every school, they’re tipped to something they should read, and they do.</p>

<p>This kinda seems like an odd place to look.</p>

<p>It does make me chuckle sometimes. A user will post something as innocuous as “I am an Asian female in Texas,” and be convinced that she is 100% identifiable! Her user name is random, and she doesn’t post anything else specific. People can be paranoid, I guess.</p>