<p>I'm not sure where to post this so I'm really just throwing it out here. In another thread someone wrote that colleges are tracking your clicks within their site, and also following your IP address out in the interwebs. Is this really possible? Wouldn't that mean that they are collecting information about everyone at your address? Are they judging us because uncle howie googled cock fighting when he came for Easter? How could they accurately disseminate that information? Are they just looking to see what other websites you visit? If my daughter signs up to receive info from oberlin can they tell that she was looking into reed a year ago? Is there a website someone can recommend to learn about this? Does my norton protect us? </p>
<p>They track your clicks by IP site within their own web site and possibly can get data from other sites through service that track the clicks and report demographic data. There is no human being looking at the specific info on the level of a particular IP address. Rather, they can get reports that give them a sense of what types of people are visiting their web site, how often people return, and the paths they follow through the site. They use that info to improve their sites and better target information.</p>
<p>They have thousands of web site visitors every single day, and a huge percentage of the visits are from internet bots and not real people. They do not tie the IP to a person and they really couldn’t care what your daughter is doing on their web site. But it is valuable for Oberlin to have a sense of aggregate numbers – how many visitors from Texas? how many from overseas, etc.? How are visitors getting to the site? What pages do they stay on the longest, and where do they go from there?</p>
<p>They could only track what your are doing elsewhere through spyware and colleges are NOT doing that. They only track visitors to the site like any website does. It is nothing to do with your application. </p>
<p>Yes, they do datamine. And if you have a unique log in they can track your access.</p>
<p>Much as it sounds like big brother, a lot of this is done to make the process better. Why are colleges (or Amazon, or CNN, or anyone else) doing this? So they can measure how good their web site is, how effective their marketing campaigns are, and how “sticky” their registered users are. What is a typical college looking at?</p>
<p>In aggregate, they want to know if people are finding their web site - how they’re searching to get there, what pages they’re visiting, what they’re searching for on-site. This allows them to improve the site. They’re also looking at overall response rates for emails being opened and possibly links in emails being followed. Then they know what subject lines are effective and what information people really want to receive in email.</p>
<p>As an individual, if you provide them with an email address they’ll start an account. You might give them the email by signing up at a college fair, registering with their web site, or they may buy your email from sites like CollegeBoard as a potential student, if you checked the box to share your information. They’ll register a touch if you do things like sign up for a brochure, register for a tour, join an online chat session, like them on Facebook, tweet using a recognized hash tag, use a custom URL or QR code to visit their site, stuff like that. They may also register touches if you open emails sent to you.</p>
<p>Every company you interact with does this. It’s no coincidence that if you buy something from Land’s End, you then see targeted ads from Land’s End when you visit other sites (often showing the items you were looking at). Ad companies use your history to show ads with the most specific relevance to you.</p>
<p>As far as looking at your individual computer, I doubt any college has the time, resources, or cares enough to pull histories off your computer - but if you’re worried about it, then go incognito and don’t save any history. Norton wouldn’t do anything as this is not a virus. You can turn off all cookies, install Google’s tool to hide from analytics, and do other things to keep people from knowing what you’re doing, but it will make life on the internet slower, more difficult, and less customized. They’re not going so far as to follow your IP address - their would be no financial gain from doing so. Same as their would be no gain in trolling to find out what other colleges you’re looking at. Colleges know who their competitors are, and they have other ways of finding out where you applied. </p>
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<p>This is a big issue for us as our daughter is seeking merit aid. We know at least two of the schools to which she’s applying are very particular in offering their full tuition scholarships only to students who are serious about attending their institutions, D is most definitely serious about attending one of them and if that school can see where else she’s applying, we may actually drop her number one, pie in the sky, merit reach school since the odds of winning merit money there are slim and none since it’s otherwise such a perfect fit for her that I suspect if other schools could see she was applying there they’d almost certainly guess it was her number one. We’re not applying for financial aid so is there any other way schools can tell where she’s applying?</p>
<p>While there’s always talk to top schools “colluding” over what aid to offer students, I’m not sure I believe they have time to do that. Most schools will send out a survey after May 1st to accepted students who did not register asking questions that include what other schools did you apply to and where are you attending. And I’m sure admissions counselors talk casually at conferences and school fairs about what they’re hearing from students - but I doubt that’s at an individual level. I can’t say if schools have any way of getting that information before acceptance/aid offers. </p>
<p>A school that is looking for students who are likely to attend is going to be more worried about demonstrated interest at THEIR school than interest at others. Every school knows they’re not the only one a student is applying to. What they want to avoid is kids who shotgun the Common App to schools they’ve never shown ANY interest in. It’s a red flag if you are high-stats for a school yet have not visited, not registered for info, never spoken to a counselor at a college fair, never in any way shown you even care about learning what the school is really like. Schools also want to know, if significant numbers of accepted students are matriculating at a different school, what the delta is so they can work to be more competitive.</p>