<p>does anyone else feel uncomfortable posting their stats considering that adcoms could be lurking on the board?</p>
<p>NSM, do you really think they are? And, if they were, do you think that they’d take into account that some people are really modest and belittle their own accomplishments/knowledge while others are excessively arrogant and embellish their accomplishments/knowledge?</p>
<p>Anyone who reads this post…can you tell me your opinion, too? Thanks! :)</p>
<p>as others have said even if they are hre they could not take forum behavior into account. Soemone could easily pretend to be someone they know is applying rather than posting their true stats. It is just impossible for the adcoms to get a real impression of kids based on their online behavior. (if it is even really them)</p>
<p>Okay guys, get a grip; this is paranoia. Go outside and play.</p>
<p>lol, Dr. Sedrish!!!! I love that comment...I read something someone wrote a little while ago about how she wanted to be a check-out lady at wal-mart when she was little...
do you guys remember those days? :)</p>
<p>as for the OP...I have no clue, and I really hope they do not take such posts into account since, as wbm and so many others have said, people do lie...:)</p>
<p>It is common sense not to post anything on the Internet, even on so-called anonymous boards and blog sites -- that one wouldn't want one's worst enemy reading.</p>
<p>Of course, there are some adcoms who read these boards. With the thousands of adcoms who exist, why wouldn't one expect that some would land on CC?</p>
<p>I have posted earlier that once I ended up interviewing someone whom I had initially anonymously "met" on CC. It was pure coincidence that I ended up interviewing the poster, who up to that point had been very appropriate on CC. To my knowledge, the poster never knew that I had initially "met" them on CC.</p>
<p>On a non CC relationship board, I once saw a post describing the poster's promiscuous sex life, and then realized that the person who posted was a professional woman who worked for the same company that I had worked for. The woman was a conservative looking middle aged woman and I never would have dreamed that her life after work was so "lively". </p>
<p>Another time, on a completely different "anonymous" board, I looked at the poster's name and realized that the person probably was a woman I knew who had gone into hiding after a lovesick, crazed coworker had shot her in her company's parking lot. I e-mailed the poster, and yes, it was the person whom I thought it was. If I could find her, her stalker (who was out on bail) also could find her.</p>
<p>The people whom I think would be in trouble here on CC for posting would be people who post things about being unethical, and people who post material like test questions that are under copyright, etc. Colleges with concerns about students' ethics could call GCs and do other things to find out whether their concerns are valid.</p>
<p>Of course, people who post their essays do risk those essays being stolen by unethical people, but unfortunate as that would be, it's not as bad as losing an admission slot or having test scores cancelled because one has lied on one's application, falsified financial data on financial aid forms or has unethically backed out of ED.</p>
<p>While we are on the subject, one never should say something in e-mail that one wouldn't want the whole world to know. Once I was downloading my e-mail from work, and got hundreds of private e-mails from a co-worker's account. I have no idea how this happened as I definitely had plugged in my name and password.</p>
<p>I also know a student ("Sally") who got angry with her roommate when they were doing a summer internship. To take revenge, "Sally" made copies of their e-mails, and then mailed it to the other student's professor. In the e-mails, which were filled with curse words flung by both roommates, "Sally" expressed concern over the fact that the roommate was having an affair with a married man, and the roommate kept her room like a pigsty. </p>
<p>Incidentally, Sally and her roommate attended colleges about 500 miles apart. It was pure coincidence that Sally happened to have in the past taken a summer program that was run by a professor in her roommate's small major.</p>
<p>lol... ouch....</p>
<p>I just remembered a situation in which I should have taken my own advice.
Under my real name, I post on a listerv that has a variety of Ivy alum who are interested in a certain issue. I only know a couple of the members IRL, and typically, I don't know specifics about where the various members work, etc.</p>
<p>One time, I posted information from a news article related to the group's subject, and then gave some examples from my local area, including my S's school.</p>
<p>To my surprise, one of the people who responded identified themself as an adcom from a top college that at that time S was considering. In fact, S had just declared that college his top choice. I had had absolutely no idea that there was such an adcom on the listerv, and I was glad that I hadn't posted more detail about S's school or about S!</p>
<p>A follow-up to the questions about whether adcoms, seeing questionable posts by applicants, would reject applicants based on those posts:</p>
<p>I doubt that any adcom would reject an applicant based on posts on anonymous boards. As several have mentioned, adcoms would not know whether the applicant was posting or whether another person was pretending to be the applicant.</p>
<p>I believe, however, that if posts suggested that an applicant was unethical, lacked compassion, was purely out for themselves, etc., that could cause an adcom to take a closer look at the applicant, and to seek more information from the GC, teachers, and even possibly from having an additional alumni interview.</p>
<p>I know that the adcom handling my region has been known to spend 45 minutes on the phone talking to top applicants' GCs. I have heard this from the GCs themselves. The adcom has been particularly interested in the students' ethics and whether the students are arrogant, kind to others, motivated by a love of learning or simply a desire to get As and top scores. My understanding is that the adcom does not settle for "yes" "no" responses, but wants examples of the students' behavior. For all I know, the adcom may also call some of the other people who wrote recommendations.</p>
<p>Contrary to many people's thoughts about Harvard and similar schools, adcoms are not looking to admit obnoxious, selfish, jerks, no matter how smart or talented such students are. I have heard adcoms say that otherwise outstanding candidates have been rejected from top universities because of essays that displayed character traits that were undesireable. This included applicants who seemed conceited (and there is a big difference between being confident and being egotistical), bigoted, etc. </p>
<p>I have seen rejections go to some students who seemed to have the whole package, but who were obnoxious jerks: The type of students who condescend to teachers, make fun of other students, etc.</p>
<p>Once when I was representing Harvard at a college fair, I ran into a student who went out of his way to be condescending and obnoxious. While a line of students waited to talk to me, this student told me some **** and bull story about being a "loser" who had bad grades, scores, but wanted to go to Harvard. He was obviously saying these things to give his sidekick a laugh. No matter how I tried to move on to the next student, he insisted on continuing to waste my time.</p>
<p>I later ran into the same student swhen the Harvard adcom visited our region. The student, and his sidekick friend, were EA applicants, and their GC said they were some of the top students in their class. They both eventually were rejected. I was not their alumni interviewer, and had nothing to do with the rejection. </p>
<p>I suspect that the students treated other people the same way that they treated me, and that their condescending, arrogant attitudes had been reflected in their essays or the info was passed on by their references (possibly in follow-up calls made by the adcom).</p>