Moles for Admissions Offices: Do they exist?

Applying to College
1

This is a spin-off discussion from another thread.
Basically, the gist of it is whether admissions officer “moles” exist on CC.

Here’s the premise:
You are an admissions officer in a top 25 university.
Your precious ranking depends on getting your “yield” (ratio of enrolled:accepted students) as high as it can be.
You have a vested interest in monitoring buzz about your school on the CC forums (negative or positive).
You also have a vested interest in finding out which of those 30,000 applicants are serious about your school and which are tire-kicking.

So… why not dedicate a subordinate in your admissions office to be a mole?

The mole’s job: Read as many chance posts and posts in your college’s forum and find out who the posters are.
Then, eliminate the applicants who are tire-kicking or disparaging your school.

Sound difficult?
It really isn’t.

Let’s say there is an applicant named “zzChance123zz” posting on CC.
Chance wants to get into Harvard, but he admits in one post that he applied to all the top 25 schools on a shotgun approach and will go to whichever he deems most prestigious.
In another post, he brags that his SAT score for June 2015 was 750 R / 750 M /800 W.
In another thread, he notes he is unhappy with his SAT 2 Math of 790 in May 2015 but that he won’t take it again since he also got an 800 on Physics.
In another, he mentions that he is proud that he is a Habitat for Humanity volunteer.
In another thread, he mentions he is a legacy at Berkeley (Dad was an alum).
In another, he complains that Asians like him have a harder time getting into top 25 schools.
In another, he says he loves Harvard but that Brown is too granola but that he will apply to Brown anyway.

Now… Here comes the mole!

The mole can conclude that Chance is an Asian and also knows his precise SAT scores, breakdowns, and precise dates on which he took them, his identifying EC’s (Habitat for Humanity), and that the father was a Berkeley alum (which conveniently is listed in the Common App for all schools he is applying to). The mole also knows that Chance would pick Harvard over Brown (which is useful if the mole works for Brown).

From these simple data points, I would say it would be easy for any admissions office to narrow this fellow down to just one person in an applicant pool of 30000+.

I know it sounds paranoid, and perhaps it is.

The real question, however, is whether admissions moles exist on CC.

So, do they? :wink:

I vote absolutely yes that they do - at least for some competitive schools.

“Discuss amongst yourselves - I’m getting verklempt again!”

2

I know a couple of admission officers and from what they tell me they would not have the time, energy, or interest in doing that.

3

No, they wouldn’t do that.

4

Less than 1% of those 30,000 applicants post on CC. It would be a huge waste of money to pay anyone to read the posts.

5

Reading the essays alone would require massive infusions of caffeine. I don’t know how they do it.

6

I can’t imagine AO’s (or their minions) would ever have the time necessary to pick through posts on CC in order to eliminate or promote specific applicants.

I wouldn’t be surprised, however, if a few AO’s occasionally browse CC in the off season to check the general scuttlebutt about their schools, e.g., that the school has bad info sessions, or students like the free cookies, or applicants are having difficulty with the admissions portal. I don’t think this would be a bad thing.

7

I can assure you that many admissions officers do follow CC and regularly read the posts about their school (especially the LACs and other schools not mentioned a gazillion times each day).

That said, I have to agree that none of them are giving it enough attention that they’d routinely, if ever, cross index what people wrote on different threads. As said above, they want to understand the general flavor of the conversation about their school.

There might be an occasional exception to this, but not many.

8

Both MIT (MITChris) and UChicago have admissions people posting here. I know that BC did this year as well. I imagine there are a lot of lurkers from admissions offices from other schools. I think they are certainly paying attention, but I think parsing out posts from an individual poster is probably too time-consuming.

9

I agree that intermittent lurking is a possibility. I don’t think that any AO is making a concerted effort to research applicants on CC in the way suggested by the OP. OTOH, I do think that some people give way too much identifying info on their “Chance me” threads. Whatever you do, don’t combine the TMI post with condescending or overly candid comments about the small LAC you’re considering as a match or safety. Just in case the AO is lurking that day.

10

Have you written the screenplay yet?

You should call it “The Mole Who Chanced Me”

11

@ClassicRockerDad bwahahaha! I love it!

12

Haha, if you can think of it, it probably happens. Who knows what really happens in the world of private messages.

13

@skieurope thanks!!!

14

Do you think AOS check prospective students’ social media? even if its set to private?

15

Again, there seems to be a common misconception that AO’s have unlimited time and/or nothing better to do with their time.

No, I don’t think they do that.

16

With literally 10’s of thousands of applications to review, u honestly think the AO’s have the time or inclination to match up Chances threads w applicants?

Everyone knows that everything people post about themselves on CC is entirely accurate. <>

17

@2016senior No I don’t think so. I recently attended an info. session at Duke and the AO giving the presentation made it very clear that the admissions committee is not looking every candidate up on twitter, instagram, etc. etc. She said that the only instance when she has ever looked up a student online was when a girl, in her application, mentioned that she had a popular blog. The AO said that the blog piqued her interest and (since the girl included the link) she visited the site- simply out of her own curiosity, not to make sure the student was telling the truth or anything like that.
That’s the only instance I’ve ever heard of an AO looking up a student- maybe it happens every once in a while, but I think that these people probably have better things to do than stalk teenagers online!

18

Stalking? What an odd description. The teenagers have submitted applications and are asking to be evaluated for admission to the university.

19

On an interview with an admissions officer at a top school, D spoke about her acappella group. On her resume it stated that she was the group’s leader and had developed its web page. In the middle of the interview the admissions officer did a search to find the page, opened it, and watched a video of the group performing. Luckily it showed D conducting and all the links worked!

He came out to meet with us after the interview and seemed very impressed with D. in the end she was accepted with a large merit scholarship.

After that, we were convinced that admissions might at any time check social media.

20

Exactly. When you talk with adcoms, many of them say things which lead you to believe that checking social media is common.