What Emily Post Never Told You

Although my own college search process went fairly smoothly, no one ever sat me down and said, "Okay, here are the do's and don'ts of how to apply to schools." In retrospect, applying to college is very much akin to applying for a job. You should strive to be professional, succinct, and knowledgable. So here are some of Katie's Tips for Applying to Any School:

1) Create a generic-sounding email account for your college search process.

For the past two summers, I've worked in the phone room of Bendetson Hall, performing a lot of data entry. I'd highly recommend that you create a professional (if bland-sounding) screenname. Use a combination of your first name, last name, initials, and/or birthdate--this also makes it easy for us to keep track of who you are should we need to contact you via email. If you wouldn't feel comfortable telling your email address to your grandparent, then consider creating a separate account solely for collegiate correspondance. We've seen a lot of questionable screennames--anything from sexual innuendoes to alcohol references to the names of other colleges. Keep it PG.

2) Keep those passwords Tufts-friendly.

By the same token, be conscious of your usernames and passwords for Admissions Connection or any university-affiliated websites. When we pull up your profile on our inquiry system, we can see your private information. This is good if you ever forget your password and need to call us to retrieve it. This is bad if, in the case of one student, your password is the name of your top college choices--neither of which is Tufts. Ouch.

3) Do not send out mass emails to colleges.

Every now and then, Bendetson prints out emails from prospective students in which they inadvertently list all of the schools to which they are applying. "Your school is my #1 choice!" the student writes, beneath a CC bearing the names of 25 colleges. You're breaking my heart.

4) Proofread, proofread, proofread.

At every information session I have attended, an admissions officer joked about how a student can hurt his or her essay by referring to the wrong school. "I can't wait to attend Tufts because I've always wanted to go to school in California!" is perhaps not the wisest thing to write. The MS Word Find/Replace function is not always your friend. Similarly, "Tufts" is singular, not plural. Beware your apostrophes--it's "Tufts' application," not "Tuft's application." That little dancing MSWord paperclip will do nothing to alleviate this error.