<p>by CC do you mean columbia college?</p>
<p>Caltech, oops...</p>
<p>its aight. there are so many cc's in the world of college..........college confidential, comm college, caltech, columbia...etc.....</p>
<p>I think that many of us here - because of national competitions or unusual talents - get messages like: "Wait! Are you from _____ and is ______ your son????" It hasn't been a problem yet, and I'll pass those on for my son to respond to. But I do worry when students give away too much information that might allow a total stranger to figure out who they are.</p>
<p>Digi, I'm with you. I'm afraid that every girl at Smith has someone asking, "Are you TheDad's daughter?" At least a couple can respond, "No, but I know her." And those who have read my posts consistently could narrow down the range of suspects fairly well.</p>
<p>I can just imagine the implications...</p>
<p>"17 year old straight white male looking for small, close-knit, student-centered undergrad environment in urban setting. Preferably in non-competitive environment. Seeking concentration in biology and history with pre-med a possibility. 1370/3.7UW/top 10% of class. ECs, essays and recs all spectacular. Any interested colleges please respond."</p>
<p>babybird87: does anyone recognize me? scary!</p>
<p>I personally don't recognize you, but if I were a regional adcom for any college where you'd applied, I could probably identify you in a few minutes. Let's see--your name is Natasha; your DOB is 9/12/87; you have dual US/UK citizenship; you're from a "completely white town" in Long Island, NY (possibly Northport, since you're good friends with Ilcapo IRL and you both have 400 seniors in your HS class); you're active in tour choir, etc.</p>
<p>I don't say this to freak you out, but to emphasize that CC is, at you put it, pretty "exposed." I agree that adcoms aren't likely to have the time or energy to connect applicants to posters unless a poster has said something truly obnoxious (which I haven't seen in your posts). But I also think it's naive for anyone to believe that a post on this site is "confidential" in the sense that it can't possibly be used against them.</p>
<p>I don't work in college adm. any longer (& when I did, websites like this one didn't exist!), but the current adm. officers from my school are really much too busy reviewing applications & making decisions to be trying to figure out possible applicants from CC!</p>
<p>I do think it would be a site that adcoms might check on periodically to see what posters think about their colleges & the app. process, as others have suggested.</p>
<p>irishbird, did you like working in college admissions?</p>
<p>dstark: I really did enjoy working in college admissions. It is a very busy work environment, but it follows a cycle; so just when you were becoming crazed from all the file reading, decisions would be finalized & you were able to get out on the road & start the spring travel season to begin attracting the junior students. If you enjoy meeting & dealing with all kinds of people & giving presentations, or conducting lots of interviews, it can be a great job!</p>
<p>You need to be prepared to travel a fair amount, most heavily in the fall for high school visits & college night programs. Some schools will assign specific territories to a counselor & you would be responsible for covering that area for @ 6-8 weeks fall travel. Typically, Sept- Nov is the heaviest time period. Spring travel may not focus on individual hs visits, but consist of major college fair programs, usually the National Fairs, and serving your college's main feeder territories.</p>
<p>It is usually not a career where you will make a ton of money...entry level salaries can be low (e.g. circa 1980's: starting salary high teens to low $20's -I know that salaries have risen, but I'd hazard that most entry-level counselor positions would be mid-high $20's currently.)</p>
<p>But the college campus enviroment can be very nice as a job setting & if you are interested in pursuing further education, many colleges will offer you some tuition benefit. (Additionally, if you have college-age children, they may qualify for some tuition remission, if they are admitted)</p>
<p>irishbird, thanks for the thorough post. Did you work at the school you actually graduated from? What academic requirements are there to do this kind of work? Are you expected to have worked in the education field before you do this kind of work?</p>
<p>I did work for my alma mater. Many times recent grads will interview for these ad com positions, esp. if they enjoyed their college experience; but I think most colleges like to have a mix of people working for them.</p>
<p>Generally any bachelors degree will suffice, though many times people with marketing, communication or education degrees might be most interested. During my working years, my co-workers ranged from marketing, management, communications, international relations, psychology, english & philosophy majors.</p>
<p>If you aspire to be an associate director or Director/Dean of Admissions, a master's degree may be required. Certainly any VP position, for eg. Vice President for Enrollment will expect a masters.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information.</p>
<p>snappyretort-- whoa, very scary! I imagine just from my first name an adcom's search would be narrowed down to just a few. seeing it all there in print really brought that home</p>
<p>but, again, I'm not ashamed of what I've written here. I don't think I've been rude or abrasive. And if I ever feel the urge to be that way, I'll think again from now on!</p>
<p>Exactly, babybird. Btw, I haven't seen you as rude or abrasive either, but anyone who's tempted to be should probably find a more genuinely private outlet.</p>
<p>The thread posts an interesting question...I never thought of it in that way; I'm a new user at CC and wanted to learn more about the college admissions process more than anything else.</p>
<p>Well, some adcoms might genuinely enjoy posting here in their free time. Just like we post for fun, an adcom might like discussing or reading college topics, which would lead to things about his or her school. It would be very easy to match files up for a small LAC, but not somewhere with 20,000+ applications.</p>
<p>GWC, if this were last year and you had asked a question on the board on how much to lie about your EC's or were a tremendous .... (these are hypotheticals, please understand) it would have been easy enough to find a 1540 SAT application from the Bronx, second in your hs class, first-generation Latino, applying for FinAid. Took me two minutes to come up with that.</p>
<p>oh that's right! i've seen many people on here ask how to "con" the adcoms, or talk about vastly exaggerating their resumes and such. that's a no-no! </p>
<p>well, it's a severe no-no anyway, but certainly not to talk about it on here</p>
<p>If a reader of my app came on here, it would be very easy for him to identify me. Not just through information I've given - but my personality came across in my essays, and I'm sure it'd be easy to match them up to what I've written here.</p>
<p>But as much as it may hurt in April, if a college was to reject me because of anything I wrote on CC, it probably wouldn't be somewhere I'd fit well, anyway. I haven't presented anything on CC that is false and generally think I've portrayed (I'd venture a biased "accurately") myself as a caring, outgoing person with a slightly sarcastic sense of humor. If any admissions officer took offense to that, it would be the school's loss. I've said nothing offensive that I know of, and neither have most posters. In fact, I've met many good friends through CC - we're all going through the stressful elite admissions process together, so it's easy to relate to each other. One of the best things about CC is that I've met students out of my usual social circle (where I live is very homogenous), and wherever I end up next year I will attempt to stay in contact with them. Anything that allows this expansion to occur is imo very worthwhile, even if it means compromising anonymity to some degree.</p>
<p>In the end, I've decided it's not worth being concerned about something out of my control.</p>