Sage Advice on E-Mail from a College Admissions Officer*

Weekly Musings, Norwich University’s admissions blog, writes what should be obvious but isn’t: don’t use an obnoxious e-mail address with your college applications.

“I cannot believe what some students have submitted, to a UNIVERSITY, as their email address. Yes, we all laugh over it and share our daily “bad” addresses, but really it’s something that we should discuss. In this day and age where you can have as many email accounts as you’d like, please, please dedicate one account to college admissions.

This address should be firstnamemiddleinitiallastname@wherever.com. Not only will you have one central place where all of your college information lands, but it allows all of us on the other end to easily identify you. It also saves me the personal embarrassment of having to verify your email address and having to say back to you, “yes is your email address still triplexplayaboy69@yahoo.com?” Really, it’s uncomfortable.”

When I was working for a non-US government about 7 years ago, I was in charge of pre-screening American resumes submitted for internships. Why? Because I was the only one there who knew all the American colleges and universities [most everyone else just knew the top-tier schools]. I remember the day I read a CV that was impeccable – a prestigious secondary school, a couple years at an Ivy and on pace for summa cum laude, etc. His e-mail address was longsacktheclown@_____.com. I’ve only laughed harder two other times in my life.

This advice goes for resumes/CVs used for all things – jobs, college admissions and more. The question is, “How do you want to present yourself to others?” If you’re comfortable with longsacktheclown, by all means, do it; just be prepared for the consequences. That goes for business cards and advertising, too. Musings ends with:

“So please, take a look at your current address and if need be, change it. Whether we should or not, Counselors take notice of these things, and it stays in our heads.”

Counselors aren’t the only ones.

*and don’t try to steal or bribe your way to a copy of the LSAT. That’s dumb, too.