<p>I’m a student, and I’ve always used rather professional e-mail addresses consisting of my first and last name. More recently, I started using my own domain (i.e. firstname@firstlast.com) as my account for important e-mails and it’s set up in Microsoft Outlook and on my iPod Touch, so there’s no chance I’d miss any e-mails sent to it.</p>
<p>I think that’s professional enough. I also doubt that admissions officers would have enough time in their busy workloads to visit my web site (firstnamelastname.com), so that shouldn’t be an issue, right?</p>
<p>@1029384: Good point about registering your own name as a domain name and using that for e-mail. It’s surprisingly straightforward, and no computer programming is required. The easy way to do it is to get a cheap web hosting plan. Such plans usually include at least a few e-mail addresses, although you’ll want to make sure this is the case for your specific plan. Registering the domain name itself is fairly straightforward, and the web hosting company can take care of that too if you don’t want to bother.</p>
<p>Are you applying to US universities? Canadian universities look mostly at the numbers and probably don’t in fact take the time to read student websites. This is not necessarily the case for US universities. Many US universities, including the vast majority of elite universities, practice something called holistic admissions. This means that they look at you as a whole person rather than just your marks and SAT scores. And they take the time to do this process right. So yes, they have the time and possibly the inclination to look at a student’s website.</p>
<p>@stacy, I agree with (a). (b) is almost useless. It’s trivial for an adcom to enter an applicant’s name into a search engine to see what comes up.</p>
<p>It gets worse. The problem doesn’t end when you’re done with the university application process. Shortly thereafter, you’ll have to apply for internships and then, before you know it, your first full-time job. Nowadays, many employers research candidates using search engines and social networking sites. So if you’re a high school senior, now is the time to make sure that you’re not putting embarrassing information about yourself on the Internet which could impact your future.</p>
<p>That said, adcoms and employers researching you on the Internet can also work on your favor if they find information which reflects positively on you.</p>
<p>I personally stuck to my standard email since there’s really not much embarrassing or truly immature about it. Also, since I checked it five times a day, including the spam filter, it was a safe choice. It was simply my CC username at gmail.</p>
<p>However, once I started looking for jobs, I ended up getting <a href="mailto:fullname@fullname.com">fullname@fullname.com</a> on top of using my @berkeley.edu email. For that, it matters in the sense that I’m clearly presenting myself as a real person which they can trust to do real work. However, for the college app, I still say: not really necessary – as long as you’re a strong student, professionalism isn’t that important.</p>
<p>You can send an email to a cell phone. For example a Verizon phone would have the @vtext.com extension. If your cell phone number is 973-555-1234, you can send it an email that will show up as a text to <a href="mailto:9735551234@vtext.com">9735551234@vtext.com</a>. It will truncate long messages, but you will see the sender. Using this as the forwarding email might be a happy compromise/prompt to the student that doesn’t check his/her ‘collegeapp’ email account regularly. (the other extensions I know are: @txt.att.net for AT&T and @messaging.sprintpcs.com for Sprint)</p>
<p>I gave up sending emails to my Girl Scouts 2 years ago (now HS Seniors) and created a distribution list to send them blast text reminders about meetings/events.</p>
<p>Yes, absolutely. No problem with those. My only caution is against email addresses that send a negative message, even if subliminally. The main reason for setting up a separate college account isn’t to totally whitewash the address but to make it easier to spot the official college material that would otherwise land in inboxes already cluttered with gazillions of, “Haley Hasseloff has added you as a friend on Facebook” missives. </p>
<p>When I worked at Smith College, we would celebrate the annual spring mailing of decisions with a “Letter Day Lunch” for all the staff who had been involved in the process. The financial aid folks were in charge of the “entertainment,” and one of their annual games involved providing a selection of email addresses of actual candidates. The rest of us had to guess which candidates got in and which didn’t, based on their email addresses. The “in” list invariably included some addies with an academic ring (“PhysicsPhan” or “HookedonBooks”), while the “outs” often made reference to slacking or substance abuse (“SkoolSux” or “BongBabe”). </p>
<p>But do keep in mind that this was really just a game. Officially, no decisions were ever made based on email addresses. I certainly can’t ever remember a comment in a committee meeting that was along the lines of, “Would anyone really want ‘DevilsDisciple’ as a roommate?” However, on a subconscious, level, it’s impossible to know what sort of impact a poor choice of address might make on an admission officer.</p>
<p>Yet, personally, I do recall quietly appreciating the more fun and clever addresses (e.g., there was a girl named Robin who could be reached at “bird4lyfe”). So there is no need to steer away from choices that don’t have a “professional” tone, but I still suggest dropping the ones that could raise a small flag.</p>
<p>S refused to change his as he is one of those who likes the “side menu” so he can see any new messages arrive while he is online. His name did refer to a video game, it was not offensive in any way. Still, I had wanted him to have a professional sounding email address. He was accepted at 4 out of 5 schools, so I guess I was just being one of those helicopter parents. ;)</p>
I have run into many web sites and mailers that can’t handle the embedded ‘+’ character in a gmail name.</p>
<p>So I would be careful using this strategy. You may wind up never getting any of the emails, and of course you have no way of knowing you’re not getting the emails.</p>
<p>@1029384: In that case, it’s not a problem if adcoms look at your site. (This assumes you’re correctly judging how the site’s content reflects on you.)</p>
<p>My comments about being careful about your online reputation weren’t directed solely at you. Many people are putting content out there that reflects negatively on themselves and not realizing this may get in the way of their future goals.</p>
<p>I never checked my email until I got a new phone that I could easily check it on - now I check it every day and use it just as much as texts. (That says a lot)</p>
<p>I think it’s all about accessibility - until you get an expensive phone, texts are portable; emails are not.</p>
<p>Haha, this was pretty funny to me, because my email addresses were always pretty professional. Therefore, I never had a problem with submitting college apps with it.</p>
<p>And this was pretty funny to *me,*finishmydrink, because, even if your email addresses were professional, your CC user name is exactly the type of language that I warn high school seniors to change.</p>
<p>Of course, your CC name is anonymous, so you don’t have to worry about your moniker here. But you’ve provided me with a good example of an email address that college-bound students shouldn’t use. Thanks. :)</p>
<p>Sally and I are on the same page about email addresses. I teach college level business communication and having a professional email address is one of the basics covered in the class for precisely the reasons she cites.</p>
<p>Another hint stolen from my job hunting unit: if you’re likely to be getting calls from professionals (college interviewers?), make sure your voicemail message is plain vanilla during that time period.</p>
<p>If interviewers are calling your home phone, and the voicemail/answering machine message is something cutesy like your dog barking or your baby sister singing, that’s not a deal-breaker. But if the interviewer is calling your cell, and the message is inappropriate, it can certainly start you off on the wrong foot.</p>
<p>^We notice my son, changed his voice mail. The other one used to say (in a very grouchy tone of voice) “Hi this is ___. I’m not here right now or I just don’t want to talk to you. You can leave a message if you want.” The current one is a little more polite!</p>
<p>What 18 year old doesn’t have a professional email such as “<a href="mailto:first.last@gmail.com”>first.last@gmail.com</a>" these days? I’m pretty sure college aged kids don’t have emails like “<a href="mailto:xbox247@hotmail.com”>xbox247@hotmail.com</a>" anymore. And if they do, LOL.</p>
<p>Believe it not not when I took the helicopter parent test I was marginal negligent. I too check D’s emails and organized in a notebook each school, info sent, due dates, etc as well as the application websites- several schools did not get the SAT scores that were definitely sent, some did not get the money, etc. basically took hours and hours to check on details. Some email went to spam, etc. I told her this would be may part in the process and it worked out well. The hours it took to do this would never have been done by D and I am guessing she would have not even been considered due to incomplete apps (due to college human error) in several schools. She would never have been able to keep up with the 5 AP classes and this at the same time- no regrets.</p>
<p>For all my professional-ish mail, I use a free pop account from lavabit.com (kinda weird name but not bad-wierd) since I have a VERY common name and I couldn’t get firstlast or lastfirst or first.last or first.middle.last or firstmiddlelast or anything else related with any major service. At lavabit I get firstlast. Then, I just set up the POP so that it ends up in my gmail account (and my gmail account settings so that it looks like I’m sending from the lavabit address).</p>
<p>Works great and only one email address to check.</p>