Email address to use for the college search and app process

[Grantmom]

Up until now, DS has used one email only, and uses it for a lot of things, but has been judicious in what he signs up for.  It has been fine, he doesn't get a ton of spam, and it has worked well using one email address for everything.

 

Now, in the college search process, he is signing up for lots of things.  An account with the college board, signing up online to get on college's mailing lists, some of the colleges have mailing lists for prospective students, etc.  He already gets lots of emails to his account for his online classes (automatic reminders about due dates, etc) and I think that sometimes his inbox gets overwhelmed and worry about him missing important emails.

 

Someone in a recent thread suggested creating a junk email address for the College Board account because they started getting a lot of junk mail.  It's too late for that, he already used his primary email address for the CB account.  But now, I am having him go to college websites and look at info, and seeing all of the sign-ups on every website.  I wonder if it might be better to create another email address for those things.

 

My concerns are:

1)  If he gets a 2nd email address:  It's extra work to check another email.  If he uses another email address for the entire college application process, will he see important notifications in a timely fashion?  You'd have to be sure to check the other email every day.  What if he doesn't get something important on time?  I know he could have the stuff forwarded to his primary account but that again brings up the issue of getting too much in one inbox and missing the important stuff.  I have a second email address, in fact I have a few, because of this reason, and it is kind of a pain to check them all.

 

2)  If he uses his primary email address:  I want him to be able to keep this one for a long time because it is a good email with parts of his name and will be appropriate and professional.  I have had the same email for a very long time and like that I have a record of so many things.  However, I get a TON of spam now after so many years of the same email address.  The email provider does a great job of filtering it, and one only occasionally slips through, but they are just downright disgusting titles, and lately they have lots of flashing emoticons in the titles.  I hate even going into my Spam folder to check it for anything important and delete them.  I really hate having to look at them.

 

What do you think and what have you done?  Did your student sign up for the newsletters from college admissions offices of places where they were interested in?  Did they create a second junk account?

 

Thanks! 

Edited April 24, 2016 by Grantmom

[Jenny in Florida]

My son set up a separate e-mail for the college search and then had e-mails from certain senders forwarded to his primary address for as long as it made sense to do so.

 

Also, since I was his college search advisor, we both had the login info for the second e-mail, meaning I could log in and check things, too, when he was busy.

 

Once he started college, he actually pretty much stopped using the account that had been his primary e-mail, anyway, because all of the important, school-related stuff goes automatically to the college-provided account. Same thing happened with my daughter. Once she graduated from college, she ended up setting up a new account with her preferred provided and never went back to the one she had used before.

 

We have kept the secondary account alive, and we use it for things like FAFSA filing and any other education-related things to which both of us need access. Just the last couple of months, we've also used it while I helped him search and apply for summer jobs. I sent links to any online postings I thought would interest him to that address, and we used it to exchange drafts when I helped him update and edit his resume. That way, that stuff doesn't get lost in the deluge of messages that come to his now-primary college e-mail account. And on days/weeks when he's been super busy with end-of-semester projects, he can ask me to check the secondary account for anything job-related on which he needs to follow up.

 

It's worked well for him.

[regentrude]

A few suggestions:

 

he could create separate emails for the separate purposes. There are programs that can aggregate the email accounts on one screen so he can see immediately which accounts have new mail. So no, it is not really "extra work" to check another email account.

 

 

You'd have to be sure to check the other email every day.

 

He should get in the habit of checking every one of his email accounts at least once a day.

 

)  If he uses his primary email address:  I want him to be able to keep this one for a long time because it is a good email with parts of his name and will be appropriate and professional

 

He can create multiple email addresses that have his name and look professional, so it is really not a problem if one gets eventually overwhelmed with spam. That happened to my primary address which is no longer usable- but you can have joesmith@  (google or yahoo or many others) or  jsmith@.... there are so many possibilities to create a free email account that looks professional that I would not worry about this. As soon as he gets to college, his college email should be his primary address for all academic issues anyway.

 

He should learn to clean his inbox and work with subfolders for different topics, senders, and delete spam and advertisements. That is a good habit to develop.

 

Lastly, I would recommend signing up only for colleges where he is actively pursuing enrollment. You don't need info emails, since all relevant info is on the school website anyway.

Edited April 24, 2016 by regentrude

[Cosmos]

Lastly, I would recommend signing up only for colleges where he is actively pursuing enrollment. You don't need info emails, since all relevant info is on the school website anyway.

 

Does this help, though? My ds started getting a deluge of mail after the PSAT this year. He thought he checked the box NOT to share his info, but he must have made a mistake because ever since January he has been getting emails and physical mailings every day. He is not signing up for the mailing lists that are linked in the emails but they keep coming anyway. Some of the colleges just keep sending things over and over again.

 

[regentrude]

Does this help, though? My ds started getting a deluge of mail after the PSAT this year. He thought he checked the box NOT to share his info, but he must have made a mistake because ever since January he has been getting emails and physical mailings every day. He is not signing up for the mailing lists that are linked in the emails but they keep coming anyway. Some of the colleges just keep sending things over and over again.

 

That is the stuff he gets because the CB gives out the address.

 

I was referring to the OP mentioning her son is looking at college websites and sees signup options; there I would be extremely selective.

 

[quark]

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Edited April 25, 2016 by quark

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Ds was getting too much from schools he didn't care about. I hav access to his account. With his permission I went into his account about once a day to unsubscribe and delegate the emails from schools he didn't care about. Within about a month it was much more under control.

[angela in ohio]

Ds was getting too much from schools he didn't care about. I hav access to his account. With his permission I went into his account about once a day to unsubscribe and delegate the emails from schools he didn't care about. Within about a month it was much more under control.

 

This is what we do. Dd uses email only for "boring" stuff (they use Google Hangouts and texting for anything social) so I have access to her email and regularly check it. There were waves after she took the ACT, SAT, and when PSAT scores/National Merit stuff  came through. I would go in and unsubscribe. It wasn't too bad. It was worth it to have one official email when applications came through and scholarship stuff started up. Once things get going, it really has to be checked daily, so it's easiest to use one email.

[kiso1]

If you create a second email, you can forward the emails from the second to the primary. I know this can be down in gmail because I have several accounts and I forward all of them to the primary and I only check the primary one.

[GoodGrief]

Actually, having a couple of extra e mail addresses is not a bad idea. One pure "junk college/scholarship" account, and the serious college correspondence account with a professional sounding name. My daughter's old childhood e mail account effectively served as the junk account (she did not have a huge interest in preserving it for later use anyway), and she created a new g mail account. It's not too hard to keep track of both, but she's less likely to miss stuff in the dedicated "serious" account.

 

Also, I suggest making use of the "unsubscribe" option at the bottom of various e mails (assuming that they are from legitimate senders; one has to be careful about clicking strange links, of course.) It cleans up the e mail box nicely to stop some of these frequent mailers.