<p>I find CC far more exposed than I find other forums that I post on. After all, I may actually be meeting some of these people next year in college!</p>
<p>actually, I am afraid sometimes that adcoms will connect me to a specific post...but there's really nothing here I'm ashamed of, so there you have it.</p>
<p>if they do, i say make yourself known!</p>
<p>Liek...think about it: there's absolutely no up side for an adcom member to make themselves known. And lots of down side. Quiet lurking anonymity is exactly what you'd expect.</p>
<p>"<em>I'm</em> a 7 foot tall Albino with a criminal record!!!"- You should so audition for the movie version of The Da Vinci Code</p>
<p>Some admissions officers definitely read CC. For example, when we met the regional officer at a reception for accepted students at my daughter's college last spring, the adcom told my daughter that she had recognized her from a single post on CC. There was no awkwardness about this, because the post was completely innocuous; if there had been something objectionable, I doubt if the adcom would have mentioned it--but I also doubt that my daughter would have been admitted.</p>
<p>Obviously, not all adcoms are lurking on CC all of the time, and some probably never are. But some people do seem to find this site addictive....</p>
<p>In the end, I agree with other posters here: I don't believe an adcom would take the trouble to match up an applicant with his CC posts unless the poster came across as markedly obnoxious or dishonest. In such cases it seems quite likely that serious indiscretions on CC would work against an applicant's chances, especially at the most selective schools. If a college has more highly qualified applicants than it can possibly take, why wouldn't an adcom want to screen out an obvious liar or troublemaker?</p>
<p>I'm not an expert on Adcom's, but I work in Human Resources and our entire group regularly checks out Vault, *&^%company.com, and the Yahoo message boards which have sites about our company. We get over 100,000 unsolicited resumes per year, and have been delighted and surprised with how easy it is sometimes to connect the dots on a string of obnoxious postings on the internet about a recruiter, a bad interview, or whatever, with a particular candidate. Not hard at all. Candidates have posted gratuitously personal comments about their interviewers.... we don't like that. I may be an #$%hole, but if I find you've posted that fact on Vault after interviewing with me, I will make sure your resume never sees the light of day.</p>
<p>I am less concerned with the admissions implications of this, however, than I am with identity theft or stalking. There are some regular posters here who I've actually been able to identify (name and address, believe it or not) just based on stuff they've written about their kids. And no, I'm not a psycopath... but was being cautious before posting about my own kids and wanted to see how hard it would be to figure out who somebody was.</p>
<p>Since our kids tend not to practice good internet habits by posting personal stuff on facebook.com or in their blogs, I think it's important for us not to post stuff which would allow some lunatic to figure out who they are and where they live. If you live in NY or CA you're pretty safe.... big, populous states are hard to crack. If you've posted lots of personal stuff and you're from a rural state, be careful... especially since your local newspapers tend to publish lots and lots of stories about high school kids, who has done what, who goes where, etc.</p>
<p>"If you live in NY or CA you're pretty safe.... big, populous states are hard to crack."</p>
<p>Nope, not true at all. I have been able to identify people posting here from populous states like the above. Lots of people who post on these boards have unusual talents, achievements and goals (such as their future majors or the type of colleges they're applying to). Being from a populous state doesn't confer anonymity.</p>
<p>Remember, too, that people also may be identified by folks who know them very well, and those people may happen to know adcoms, etc. Those people might also be their own GCs.</p>
<p>LIke Blossom, I have been able to identify at least one frequent poster, in this case someone from a small state that I visit fairly regularly but do not live in. I found it interesting, in a sort of gossipy way, and in my case the curiosity was harmless, but I certainly agree with several recent posters that there are potential security issues and invasion of privacy when identifiable details are posted. And details are surprisngly easy to piece together into an identifable portrait. Besides that, in addition to the obvious question of whether admissions officers might see posts that suggest fraud or lack of integrity on the part of an applicant, there is also a more general possibility that opinions or narratives posted on a forum may offend people who were involved in a given incident or activity (classmate, colleague, teacher, or administrator), even though the poster assumes a comfortable degree of anonymity or doesn't intend to be overtly critical but sees things through a different prism.</p>
<p>I don't like this thread... one bit</p>
<p>not that I said anything bad per se, but adcoms would definitely be able to recognize me, considering i've posted in "What are my Chances" thread before with virtually all my stats and information... its just a scary thought that they could be reading what you're saying.... but I don't really think I said anything bad that any1 would look down upon... so I guess have nothing to worry about, right?</p>
<p>I think adcoms need to realize that for many people, CC serves as an outlet - for our emotions, our concerns, our worries, our EVERYTHING... lol... it helps me out to talk to people going through similar things and experiencing the whole process together.... I just hope our words and posts won't come back to haunt us.. Although its pretty conforting that tens of thousands of students apply to these schools... I'm sure the average adcom won't have time to check up on student's posts.. but I could be wrong</p>
<p>Remember, too, that adcoms have spouses, partners and parents who might be interested in their work (or have college-bound kids) and therefore check out forums like this.</p>
<p>Those sig others might call the adcoms saying things like, "Hey, honey, look at this post from some clown from New York who is applying to your school and who says that he conned his interviewer yesterday. Didn't you tell me that you were really impressed yesterday with a student from there?"</p>
<p>I am glad now that I only asked generic questions and didn't post son's stats until after admissions decisions were in! I will go into similar silent mode now with younger ones, who are still several years away. </p>
<p>Heck, the adcoms might even decide they don't like the PARENT and not admit the kid! (I have actually heard of that happening in the realm of college athletic recruiting. A couple of notably intrusive dads who had really outstanding kid-athletes, found that their kids were not at the top of lists as they should have been, because the dads' reputations as potentially really annoying about playing time, etc., had preceded them and the coaches decided to look elsewhere even though they liked the kids.)</p>
<p>Well I'm curious as to what exactly someone can do to you with your name and address once they have it. We publish ours in my daughter's high school directory. Identity theft has more to do with your social security and credit card than an address from what I've read. And aren't the faces directories only available to students at each individual college?</p>
<p>I would think some adcoms would visit sites like this. Not to try to figure out who the posters are, but to see what people think about the school and the whole admission process.</p>
<p>I, like others, have recognized kids here that I know, in real life. It's not all that difficult. I know, for a fact, that many adcoms frequent these forums. These are people I know, and have discussed this with them. It's often surprising how much information some of these kids here post in their questions/comments. It makes them easily identifiable to anyone who may be interested, which isn't really a problem, as long as the kid isn't abusive, rude, or dishonest. The same issues apply to livejournal communities for colleges, where kids post asking questions, etc. Facebook entries are only available to individuals who attend a particular school, to my knowledge. One thing I've tried to teach my own kids, and also the kids I counsel, is not to put anything on the internet which they wouldn't want everyone they know to see. I agree with the comment about how parents can also come across as a negative if they're not particularly polite, etc. I've seen this happen in both sports and theatre situations.</p>
<p>does anyone recognize me? :( scary!</p>
<p>actually, I know of only two people from my school on this forum...the guidance counselors aren't aware of this site at all...so the chances of me being recognized by anyone here are slim, unless it's an adcom specifically looking.</p>
<p>But it's doubtful they'd try to connect the applicant to the poster unless they were being obnoxious, correct? I did say some depressed things after I was deferred from Georgetown, but I wouldn't want it held against me...after all, I was upset....</p>
<p>"I think adcoms need to realize that for many people, CC serves as an outlet - for our emotions, our concerns, our worries, our EVERYTHING... "</p>
<p>It's important to realize that nothing on-line is guaranteed to be secret. If one wants to vent, it is far better to vent to a very good friend, an IRL diary that one keeps locked up or to a therapist or similar person whom one is communicating with in real life. It's not a good idea for anyone to thoughtlessly spew on-line, including on blogs that are done under assumed names.</p>
<p>As is the case with the rest of life, adcoms probably don't have a lot of patience with people who when under pressure start flaming, blaming, name calling, espousing paranoid, racist or sexist theories etc.... Everyone has challenges. What defines character is how people respond to challenges.</p>
<p>There's also a big difference between sounding sad about a rejection or deferral and sounding paranoid or violently angry. The latter examples are what would make adcoms stand up and take notice.</p>
<p>"I think adcoms need to realize that for many people, CC serves as an outlet - for our emotions, our concerns, our worries, our EVERYTHING."</p>
<p>On the contrary...</p>
<p>adcoms don't need to realize anything. Students who post on here need to demonstrate the maturity and tact that is expected of young adults who will become a part of a college community.</p>
<p>adcoms don't need to excuse potential behavior or postings on here that fail to demonstrate that.</p>
<p>I tend to disagree with what massguy has just said. "Maturity and tact" are achieved to certain degrees in certain applicants. An applicant that could make an incredibly positive impact on Harvard might not yet have the "tact" to know that it is inappropriate to say that he thought his interviewer was ugly (just an example lol) The applicant could be kidding, could be trying to make people laugh, could be stressed, it might not even be the applicant! All of these things have to be considered when you are on the internet.</p>
<p>I think that kids are just talking, so let them talk and stop making them paranoid. Unless someone is explicitly writing their name or the name of someone else, I think it's fine! If an admissions officer truly believes that random things written on the internet are worthy of consideration in the application process, I wouldn't want my child to attend that school anyways.</p>
<p>hmm, I think it would be funny if someone on cc was someone I know...
try explaining that relationship to others...
"well, see, as I've been spending time on this site about college and reading other peoples' stats, etc, I realized that ___________ who I've been reading about is actually _________, so I guess we're friends"</p>
<p>I can just see the looks on peoples' faces :-)</p>
<p>the CC admissions officer posts there frequently...</p>