Whole Person Assessment

parkhurst89

10-Year Member
5-Year Member
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Jun 12, 2008
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Here are two pieces of advice I offer to candidates attempting to gain admission to ANY college, whether it is the US Naval Academy, one of the other service academies, a private college/university, or a public college/university. For the US Naval Academy specifically, the Admissions Board looks at a candidate from a whole person perspective. Part of that assessment is deciding if a candidate has the judgment and maturity necessary to excel as a midshipman and commissioned officer. So...

Number 1: Be mindful of you presence on Facebook and My Space
Web 2.0 has ushered in an era of unprecedented connectivity. You can share practically anything and everything about yourself to people literally around the world. As this Wall Street Journal Article highlights, the world could include college (and even USNA) admission board members.

College Applicants, Beware

Number 2: Be mindful of your email address
I have a candidate that I trade emails with regularly. I am sure he is a great guy but his email address...HornDog###@yahoo.com really makes it tough for me to take him 100% seriously. Similarly...CutiePieZZ@gmail.com is another tough one I had last year.

Now, I am all about freedom of expression. All I would advise is that for college admission (and job seeking in the future), you might want to create a new account that is something more tame...like John.Doe@yahoo.com.

I know...buzzkill, buzzkill. I will probably get many replies that these things should not matter. Also, I will caveat this by saying I have no data to back up my tips other than what is in the WSJ article. But in the competitive environment of college admissions, my parting advice is: the less distractions the better.
 
No joke about this applying to job-seekers. :eek:

MySpace should be avoided at all costs just on general principles. I have yet to hear ANYTHING good come of that site.

As for the e-mails, parkhurst already got CEP zero on that one.
 
MySpace and Facebook - they are here to stay and awesome for staying in touch. I have a facebook now and can share lots of stuff with my far away children easily.

Have them just be aware of your privacy settings. Make sure only your "friends" can see your pages.

Email - If you are still sharing an email with your parents or using the family email, you probably want to create your own email address. Just make sure you check it.
Creating a new email, for any reason, and not checking it defeats the purpose!

My plebe has her USMA email for official USMA business (they send you ALOT of email!) and her private one for friends and family - this way I don't get lost in the USMA shuffle.
 
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