…themselves come on here? Here being CC, of course.
And stalk us to see if we really have the self-confidence that we convey in our apps or to see how we really get along with other people?
Haha, nahhh, they probably have actual lives.
On a serious note though, maybe they do - who knows? It is a rather popular college-targeted site - the only one I know of, actually. Maybe they come to stake out the upcoming prospective students/applicants, or to get a kick out of seeing all the uber happy reactions when acceptance letters are received. If I were an adcom, I’d do that. =)
<p>Yes, they undoubtedly do. Several other college boards and websites have verified that they often have admissions officers on their sites searching the forums and reading where else their applicants applied.</p>
<p>Ok, but even if they did, they couldn't be absolutely sure which candidate is which unless someone here posted their name and their stats rang bells of familiarity with an adcom who had just read it that very day. I'm sure adcoms come here to see what kids feel about the general admissions process and look at generalstudent applicant profiles for certain universities but I doubt an adcom would have enough time to look at each person here and doublecheck with an application form on their lap and make additional notes.</p>
<p>Specifically, there is another site where applicants explicitly describe their stats and the list of schools they're applying to in a database format, which is easily searchable. The moderator of that site has reported that many college admissions offices have accessed the files of students applying to their school that happen to be on that website. It's really not hard to do. </p>
<p>Also, other online college boards have reported that they've had activity from admissions offices on their sites. </p>
<p>Yeah, it's not incredibly likely that they're going to track you down on this message board -- but possible.</p>
<p>you know, we admissions folks (or ex-admissions folks, which is the only reason i feel comfortable saying this) get bored at work and <em>gasp</em> surf the web. you'd be surprised. and also, the whole "busy all day reading apps" well, there's a lot of time reading, but LESS than 10 minutes for each app.
there's also a lot of very repetitive paperwork and filing etc.
but...if you said something to catch our attention -- which is your job as an applicant -- we'll remember you. if we read something that sounds like you online you can bet that we'll do a little detective work if it's a slow afternoon and the coffee is wearing off.
we know you're human -- that's usually what makes notice you, opposed to the student-bots -- so don't worry TOO much about what you write here. but don't do anything too dumb.</p>
<p>really...don't be paranoid.
the best example i can think of was a kid who posted a reject letter pon his website. well, no harm/no foul except he gave his website address to one of our competitors. well again, no harm/no foul, right? well, happens that our director was friends with their director who happened to mention it over the phone. uh oh. well we were kinda ****ed, as you might expect. so we called the guy who then told us, NO, not gonna change my site. now THERE was the dumb mistake.
but seriously. don't worry. (unless you ADMIT to cheating on the SAT. DUH!?!)</p>
<p>I remember that kid! That was a while ago though. Maybe even a year ago. I remember because that was a huge topic of discussion and almost single-handedly increased self-censorship ten-fold.</p>
<p>300 pts? Lame. But, I have to be cynical and say that there're prolly plenty of ppl out there who gets away with this and never ever get caught or will get caught...life is so unfair sometimes. </p>
<p>myartpath: If you don't mind, for which university did you work for?</p>