I can’t believe the types of things that some b-school applicants post on sites like the BW forums, blogs, and even the message boards of the schools they’re applying to. While I don’t think adcom people at bschools spend their precious time crawling through blogs and message boards to find “dirt” on their applicants, it doesn’t seem out of the question that they would visit them every once in a while out of curiosity.
One example is on the BW forums. Someone asked for opinions on whether to pick School A or School B. She got a response saying that one school has “cute white boys” while the other was full of “dirty smelly foreigners”. Now, I am a strong proponent of freedom of speech and while this guy sounds like he’s a ignorant bigot, he has a right to believe and say what he wants. The thing I would be concerned with if I was him is whether adcom people might be reading what he wrote. If he used some combination of his initials/name for his username and posted his stats (as many people do on the BW forums), it doesn’t take a genius to match up that info with an application.
Another example I saw was on the Yale SOM message boards. Actually there were multiple examples of people getting publicly upset at the Yale SOM adcom people over various matters and criticizing them… on their own message board! This is even more foolish than the racist remarks posted by the bigot on the BW forums; don’t these people realize that someone on adcom might read their posts (which is very likely in the case of a school-hosted forum)? Obviously not…
I’m a very opinionated person and honestly, it’s been hard for me to hold back my opinions of various schools, admissions websites, etc. I’m even trying to be careful in not praising any one school too much to avoid someone on adcom from another school thinking that I don’t really want to go there. (If you are on the Columbia, Cornell or NYU adcom, to set the record straight, I would be 110% excited about attending your school this Fall!) 
Anyways, all this to say: be careful what you write online. It could come back to haunt you.
Agree with you. There was this blogger that applied to Columbia ED, but got accepted in Ross as well and was posting about weighing his decisions. Which was quite silly because I think his blogger profile had an email address to his real name and his Columbia ED offer was later rescinded — which is ultimately fine if he was “unethical” enough to apply to Columbia ED without the full commitment of going if he was accepted.The blog is gone now.
actually, i think u r being a little paranoid…
I don’t think an adcomm member would have enough time to try and match an applicants profile with somthing posted on the BW Forums. due solely to the sheer volume of applications. And considering that most people have similar stats and that the stats posted on the forums are pretty basic, it is not that simple to find a match…
and finding a username with the actual name of the individual AND having the guy’s application in their hand would require a huge stroke of luck, don’t u think?
Well, put yourself in the shoes of an adcom member. As I said in my post, I probably wouldn’t spend the time to explicitly look for info on people, but if I saw someone who was clearly showing a lack of character and knew they were applying to my school, I would take note of their username and stats and pass it along to other people in the office to make sure he/she does not get in.
All I’m saying is that it can only help to exercise a little caution…
IP address is what they could look at if someone really makes a comment that is way out of line…..When you post most IP addresses are filed….
“Look underneath the floorboards and see what I have hidden” — Good ole’ Sufjan.
What I find more disturbing is the way applicants fashion themselves around this whole “marketing yourself” idea. We’re all hyper-successful, goals-oriented people; what would happen if schools evaluated us on the least common denominator? I mean, I can’t hide the fact that I can be a selfish punk sometimes, but can I be honest about it and swallow my pride for the sake of my fellow students? I think those factors, especially in the realm of high-intensity graduate study, weigh a lot more into your contribution to a program than what you’ve accomplished.