<p>My daughter, who is about to start the application process, has an e-mail address that has a letter L and a numeral 1 in it. I am wondering whether she could create problems for herself by using this e-mail address to communicate with colleges. </p>
<p>What do you think? Did any of your kids have problems with e-mail addresses with ambiguous characters in them? Should I try to persuade my daughter to get a new e-mail address?</p>
<p>My son, in the distant past, had an email address left over from his kid days which used the name “greedo” plus a number (Greedo was a character from Star Wars). I, in my paranoia, was worried it would be read as “greed” and a number, which would make him look bad.</p>
<p>To mollify his nutty mom, S made a new address with an innocuous, hard to mistake name for his college applications. I felt better :).</p>
<p>just make a new email account. not too much hassle.</p>
<p>My daughter’s email address has a letter L which could be confused with the number 1 in it, so she always capitalizes the “L” when she is giving her email address to someone.</p>
<p>One thing she can do is open a hotmail account (or whatever) and use it just for the college application process. That way important things don’t get mixed up with junk mail, friends’ stuff, etc. I had my son open one that was simply his full name at hotmail.com. You can use it for FAFSA too and have easy access to it if she needs help keeping an eye on things. Just a thought.</p>
<p>My daughter set up a separate account just for communicating with colleges. It kept things from getting lost in the pile or filtered.</p>
<p>I would recommend Gmail, because she can flag threads in her inbox by school. Most students have a <a href="mailto:FirstNameLastName@gmail.com">FirstNameLastName@gmail.com</a> account, and it is the most reliable of the free services.</p>
<p>Thank you to everybody for all the good suggestions.</p>
<p>but this just led to my question about email names/accounts. My niece will be applying in the fall and I suggested to her father that she get a new email address for application purposes. My reasoning was that her email has a variation of the word “cutie” in it. They thought I was going a bit overboard with this suggestion. I just thought that colleges might get the wrong impression somehow. Am I overthinking this?</p>
<p>dont put anything obscene in an email. go with theotherside’s suggestion. or if you dont want to use yoru fullname just do the first parts like if you name is john doe, make your email jdoe. Aviod the number 0 b/c it can be mistaken for the letter O. But having numbers in your email account is fine. I have heard comments from my boss who I do research for that some students will apply for programs with names like “pimpdaddy” or other ones like “jesuslover” and they are kinda off putting, mainly b/c they categorize you as one type of person. It should be obvious why something like “pimp” is inappropriate, but other names like “jesuslover” can make people uncomfortable. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with being proud of your faith, it is a good idea to choose a more middle of the road name. Many kids use names with sports in them or activites they do, and these work well too</p>
<p>My activity-related email address had 1, 0, and l in it, so I just wrote the l in cursive and made sure the 1 had tails. The 0 was adjacent to a 1, so they always figured it out.</p>
<p>If your email address has cutie or hottie or anything that can make the adcom awkward typing, you might want to ditch it and use a special one just for college admissions.</p>
<p>Also please please PLEASE remember that if you are emailing an admissions officer it is still formal correspondence so do not say “hey so did u guys get my entire application yet or are u still waiting for the bribe lol”. Pretend you’re writing a letter. Use a formal salutation, do not use internet lingo and please sign your name. College admissions officers do not have your email addresses memorized so if you tell them something and dont sign it even if its a reply - how are they supposed to know it is you? </p>
<p>Summary: when talking to your friends, email as you want. When email an adcom, pretend you’re writing them a short letter.</p>
<p>Good advice , Dima.</p>
<p>I agree with everyone. New , applications only e-mail address . Depending on the family division of labor and dynamics, mom or dad can also check that account without the student having to give up their privacy in their regular e-mails.</p>
<p>My email address is kinda complicated (not a real word, three of the same letter in a row).</p>
<p>My mom made me make a firstnamelastname@gmail email. I had that email forwarded to my main gmail account. This was, however, before gmail would let you sent emails with another “reply-to” and “displayname” account. After I applied for my internship that i had last summer with the official email, they soon figured out not to use it when I replied all the time from my main email. I ditched the firstnamelastname one and didnt have a problem.</p>
<p>
I’d say this is good practice even when writing to “ghost” email accounts (<a href="mailto:undergradadmission@.edu">undergradadmission@.edu</a>) or when emailing about a lost appication account password or error. Admission staff (and sometimes officers) are getting those messages.</p>