<p>My rising senior son is beginning in earnest now the pursuit of college acceptance. I have heard (perhaps on CC) that even one's correspondent email address name can indirectly influence the roulette of college acceptances. Apparently, straight forward first name, with possibly middle initial, and last name @ such and such is advised/preferred.</p>
<p>Of course my child has a more quirky email without full first and last name, and since it's through Apple Mobile Me it can't be changed (one of the downsides to those expensive Apple products whose appeal for email name change allowance has been corporately dismissed for many years). </p>
<p>I suggested the alternative of a gmail account, just for college applications, syncing it with Mobile Me and iphone. Could be difficult. But my teen wants to keep his original email address (quirky but not rude) and points out he has already used it at a prominent college last summer for their course entry without any problem.</p>
<p>What do you parents and students think about this issue, if it even is an issue? Am I seeing ghosts, here? Of course we wish to put our best foot forward, yet teens pride themselves on a certain amount of individuality in this process.</p>
<p>Do you see one's choice of email name an issue for college correspondence and admission?</p>
<p>I can't believe I'm asking this in some ways. Thank you for your kind responses.</p>
<p>I don’t think you have to worry about it affecting college admissions unless it’s something like crackhead@ or ilovepot@ Having said that I encouraged D2 to set up a vanilla email account that we both have access to because D1 got slammed with all kinds of college email. She hated wading through all the junk to get to the “real” email.</p>
<p>I don’t think it would make or break you, but I have no doubt that an admissions officer would take someone’s who’s email address is <a href="mailto:firstname.lastname@email.com">firstname.lastname@email.com</a> more seriously than <a href="mailto:fluffybear94@email.com">fluffybear94@email.com</a>. It 99.9% won’t have an influence on your decisions, but I would be safe and make a more serious email.</p>
<p>Agree that if it doesn’t have to do with alcohol, violence, drugs or sex you are probably OK. We’ve gotten some real lulus even from attorneys applying for jobs!</p>
<p>I agree with both the foregoing posts. It is a good idea to change it now because your son/daughter will also need a more generic email when applying for jobs. I work with international students at a college, and we actually had to have a conversation with one student whose email was <a href=“mailto:lazyfatlouis@xxxxx”>lazyfatlouis@xxxxx</a>. He just didn’t get that that email would be a problem Overall, generic is definitely best. I had each of my own children set up a generic gmail account for use just for college stuff. It worked very well.</p>
<p>Your son needs to understand that when he applies to college that he is conducting business and needs to have the maturity to do just that. Would your son apply for a job using this e-mail address?</p>
<p>I have spoken to a number of admissions reps who are turned off by the fact that students have no problem using <a href="mailto:bigdaddy@whatever.com">bigdaddy@whatever.com</a> as their email address to conduct correspondence with the school. Some have said that it makes them look at the student in a different light and others have said that they have crossed off students with inappropriate e-mail addresses.</p>
<p>The first thing I advise my students is to set up an e-mail address with their government name that they will be using for all college related things (SAT, FAFSA, Admissions etc.)</p>
<p>If you do decide to set up a new email address, make sure it either gets forwarded to the old one, or gets checked regularly. My D gave her real (quirky, not her name, not offensive) email and later changed it to her name. College email was coming to both addresses, and it was confusing to keep track of. In the end, we set up the account in her name to go to both her AND me, because she is not great with deadlines and calendar tracking. (No flames, please.)</p>
<p>I don’t know how much impact an e-mail address would have (unless it’s <a href="mailto:partaygrl@email.com">partaygrl@email.com</a> or something like that), but since it was something totally in her control, my D decided to set up a new gmail address that was solely for college use. Her address contains first initial, last name and college graduation year (<a href="mailto:jdoe.2015@email.com">jdoe.2015@email.com</a>), and is more professional sounding than her other e-mail address, which isn’t rude or inappropriate but sounds like it could have been chosen by an 8 year old (which it was). I have the password to the new account, which enables me to check college related e-mail for her when she gets busy or can’t access e-mail herself, while NOT enabling me to access her private e-mail account. There’s the added bonus of having all the college junk e-mail in one place rather than in her regular e-mail box.</p>
<p>I think your son is being shortsighted in not wanting to set up a separate, free account with a serious name through yahoo or gmail. It is simply unprofessional to apply for jobs with a fluffybear94 type of name. </p>
<p>As well, think about the people on the other end - if they are trying to search their address books to respond to Joe Smith, it’s a lot easier if it comes up with an auto-fill of <a href="mailto:joesmith94@yahoo.com">joesmith94@yahoo.com</a> than if they have to remember that Joe Smith goes by fluffybear94. </p>
<p>Lots of adults have “play” screen names and serious screen names. No reason your son can’t do the same.</p>
<p>Agreeing with others who suggest setting up an entirely separate email account just for college email. The amount of email that comes in will overwhelm your son’s regular email, and will continue even after he’s gone off to college. He can still use <a href="mailto:quirkyname@gmail.com">quirkyname@gmail.com</a>, but he really needs something separate.</p>
<p>I’ll also echo the advice that this should be an account that both parent and student have the password for. I remember some CC poster’s story a few years ago about a child almost missing an application deadline for some significant financial or merit aid. The student thought it was just some college spam, but the parent caught it. There were a few times this year where my D1 was at school, couldn’t check email, and asked me to take a look at her account for some info she needed. I never opened email that she hadn’t already looked at, and I certainly didn’t check her admissions decision before she looked. :)</p>
<p>My younger son’s email address was a Star Wars reference - he got a gmail account and really appreciated having all the junk that comes with college applications filtered to a second account of its own. I had access to it as well, though I didn’t check it often. Older son’s account name was his Dungeon and Dragons name, but since it doesn’t sound like anything but an odd first name he kept it.</p>
<p>OP here, thanks for all your replies. His four year old email has the sport “lax” in it with his name initials. </p>
<p>My son contacted Apple and it turns out we can do a sub-account under his primary Mobile Me account. Apple points out that lots of names are already taken, and our last name is rather generic, so we might have to search until we find one that does the job correctly. That is what he will try first. If not that, than a gmail account. He realizes he needs to check both primary and sub account, although he will be starting out college correspondence, SAT etc. with only his new email name. Yes, I have heard a parent might be copied to ensure no problems/missed deadlines and I thank you for this suggestion.</p>
<p>He also put in a push for Apple to allow change to original primary account email name it’s selection. This has been asked for by many Apple users over the years.</p>
<p>If anything doesn’t sync correctly, I’ll keep you posted due to the many Apple users here nowadays. Thank you very much for your comments.</p>
<p>We set up separate gmail accounts that both our students and us as parents could all access just for the college application process. This kept their personal emails private but still let us help monitor the process, especially when they were traveling. Also it kept all the interesting college informational email from getting lost. And yes, the accounts were more serious sounding than the private emails. Everyone agreed at the end that it worked well. When the whole process was over, we forwarded the college email accounts into their regular ones, just in case.</p>
<p>This was great advice! I set up a generic account not only for my rising senior but also for my eighth grader and even my two year old! (for the toddler more to reserve her name on yahoo rather than for present need). It’ll be interesting to see what e-mails the toddler gets, I plan to never use it and see what happens.</p>
<p>Just to add my own annecdotal story - when we were at JHU to see the college and hear the “dog & pony show”, one of the AdComs made the suggestion echoed here to set up a college specific e-mail. He said that they had actually received an application from a student whose e-mail was *thedeadwalkatnight@*****. He said that it did not go over well and felt it reflected poorly on the student.</p>
<p>Gmail accounts can be set up to forward to whatever you prefer to check most often.</p>
<p>That way, the student can see whatever is received without having to check a separate account. To reply, the student can go log into Gmail and reply from there.</p>
<p>regardless of whether the name is appropiate or not, we found having one email addy for the college stuff very helpful. One it put all the college stuff in one place, there was not spam because it was never used for anything except college stuff, and I also had access to it. If nothing else, just sorting through the good college stuff and the not interested college stuff helped. I was able to capture all the important stuff like user names and passwords sent to him and sort the emails into folders labled things like important admission info, colleges not applied to, scholarship info etc. My son would have just left it all in one big jumble. And you know all the email coming to that one addy is college stuff, you never inadvertantly delete something thinking it is spam til you read it.</p>
<p>Why not just set up a separate email account just for college application. An email account can be set up with yahoo. It is easy and it is free.</p>
<p>I work at a university - for sending emails to applicants we use queries to pull a valid email address from the database, so for the most part the admissions staff doesn’t even see the email address. </p>
<p>I agree that having a separate email account just for college applications is a good idea, especially if the student allows the parent to access the account. My S is a jr in hs and rarely looks at his email. My D is a sophomore in college and recently traded in her very juvenile sounding (but not offensive) email address for a more grown-up one to use for internship applications.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your suggestions and comments. Guess this question is more common amongst parent and student than I thought. So, he’s agreed to switch from one with initials and “lax” to his personal name, used solely for college applications and testing.</p>
Having said that I encouraged D2 to set up a vanilla email account that we both have access to because D1 got slammed with all kinds of college email. She hated wading through all the junk to get to the “real” email.</p>