<p>What's not fair? People's comments on message boards reflect their characters. If people flame when they are angry, that indicates they have an impulse control problem. If people post comments that are immature, that indicates a maturity problem. If people post that they lie about ECs, that reflects the fact that they aren't ethical.</p>
<p>I think that if an adcom happened to lurk and saw someone posting something totally obnoxious, and that person said they were applying to the college where the adcom worked, I can imagine the adcom trying to figure out who the person is.</p>
<p>For instance, there's a student who posted about backing out of an ED Princeton decision for a reason that is not allowed. If a Princeton adcom saw that, I would bet that the adcom would want to figure out who the student is.</p>
<p>There are students who post about cheating or lying about their ECs, and who post this info along with info about where they are applying. Many colleges, particularly the elite ones with honor codes do not want to accept students like that and, yes, I can imagine adcoms trying to figure out who the students were who posted things like that.</p>
<p>When it comes to posts like, "I have an interview coming up and I'm so anxious" or "I don't know where to apply" or "It's exam period and I'm stressed," these not things that adcoms would care about. Those are typical high schoolers' reactions to h.s. challenges.</p>
<p>NSM, I agree that all things above can jeopardize one's chances, but it's also too naive and unfair to think that every poster here reflects his/her real personality in messages. That's not precise indicator of any person.</p>
<p>So, I hope adcom will be rational and will not judge students by their posts here.</p>
<p>there is probably a one in ten thousand shot that a specific adcom would come on here specifically target one student and find that specific student. I would worry more about that goofy essay, and your GPA/ECs/SAT score.</p>
<p>..people post that they lie about ECs, that reflects the fact that they aren't ethical...</p>
<p>Yes, NSM. But this is concrete. Other factors such as cheating, insulting or something like that ( i.e. not concrete) are relative, and I suppose that in real life many people on CC are absolutely defferent from what they're here.</p>
<p>Stardragon,
Applications also aren't precise indications of personality. The same rationality that allows adcoms to judge applicants by their applications also would allow adcoms to judge applicants by their posts here. Posters should keep that in mind. It's not as if posters' bodies are taken over by alien beings that post bizarre things. Posters who say off the wall things on these boards are reflecting their own personalities and thinking.</p>
<p>Particularly when it comes to the most select schools, the problems that adcoms have is how to select only a few students from a large field of outstanding candidates. Anything that helps adcoms narrow the field will be used. Adcoms know, after all, that many students who are rejected are just as good or even better than are many students who are accepted. Small things can make a big difference in terms of who gets acceptances.</p>
<p>For my USC(Marshall) interview, the lady who interviewed me mentioned that she knows about CC, but I didn't ask her if she posts frequently or what her username is...</p>