Admissions Rescinded for Social Media?

[seacloud]

I'm a student that's now been accepted to a couple of excellent doctoral programs (STEM). However, an incident during the previous year has made me concerned if I'll be able to go to school anywhere.

Last year, I had been applying to medical schools, and had gotten a couple of offers. However, after getting accepted, I had a bout of depression, and made a post on a blog of mine that I had a history of anxiety/depression, and I wasn't sure if I could control myself completely. I also mentioned that I was seeing a therapist.

A couple of months later, someone who knew about my blog and knew where I was planning on going had sent the blog post to the med school I was planning on attending, and I got my offer rescinded for "unprofessionalism" and "violation of technical standards" (namely: "Candidates must possess the emotional health required for the full use of their intellectual abilities, the exercise of good judgment, the prompt completion of all responsibilities attendant to the diagnosis and care of patients, and the development of mature, sensitive and effective relationships with patients."). I think a part of it was that my remarks could be interpreted as suggesting that I was at some risk of harming myself or others. The med school figured out who I was based on matching information I provided on my blog about myself with my application materials.

I decided that I was no longer going to pursue medicine, as I had a budding interest in research and the incident was proof that mental illness is still heavily stigmatized in medicine.

I am not in that place psychologically now, but my fear is that someone could figure out who I was (I made a few posts on a different website re: grad school admissions but mentioned the incident, under a different username), and although I'm not telling anywhere where I'm going exactly, they could spam all the schools in the field that I'm applying for hoping that I had applied and was admitted to some of them, after which the schools can rescind the offer. While my original post was of course deleted, that person may still have screenshots or archives.

Do grad schools rescind offers for what they see as "inappropriate" social media usage? Is what I posted grounds for rescinding an acceptance in a grad school context?

Edited February 7, 2018 by seacloud

[WatchfulWombat]

Good grief, why would anyone want to sabotage your academic career like that?

Honestly, it surprises me that a department in any field would rescind an offer over a blog post about mental health, though I suppose that might be normal in medicine. Though I cannot say for sure, I doubt this could be a problem for most departments. Try not to worry about it..

Edited February 7, 2018 by WatchfulWombat

[seacloud]

3 hours ago, WatchfulWombat said:

Good grief, why would anyone want to sabotage your academic career like that?

Honestly, it surprises me that a department in any field would rescind an offer over a blog post about mental health, though I suppose that might be normal in medicine. Though I cannot say for sure, I doubt this could be a problem for most departments. Try not to worry about it..

There were some people on the website which hosted my blog that weren't too happy with my take on current events and sociopolitical issues, especially considering that I argue my viewpoints. My views themselves aren't particularly extreme, but some people might have thought I was arrogant, or otherwise a terrible person because of my views and how I defend them, and therefore doesn't deserve to be a doctor. They got their wish, but truth be told, I was having cold feet about medical school at the time and wanted to continue mostly because I was afraid of unemployment if I pursued a career in research as I would have originally liked. Now I know that in my new field the job market is not as bad as I thought, especially if you learn valuable skills and take advantage of networking and other career opportunities.

In any case, with grad school I can't seem to find a justification for rescinding for social media posts unless it's explicitly threatening, depicting illegal or crass behavior, or something of that sort. In medicine they could always play the "professionalism" card for punishing any behavior that they don't like. Hopefully I also laid low enough to get that person off my trail, but I learned to never underestimate the dedication of someone who is out to destroy you - the person waited months after that post before reporting me to the med school just so that I couldn't pick a different school, reported my post from a very obscure website, and took the effort take a screenshot so that the record remains even after I delete it. I just hope that grad schools don't see posts like that as an issue - I know in the post it could be construed as I am at risk of hurting myself or others but I'm very much in a better place psychologically now.

Edited February 7, 2018 by seacloud

[TakeruK]

I can see why there are differences in "professionalism" expectations of medical school vs graduate school. 

I don't know the full story so I will withhold judgement. For graduate school, if your conduct is determined to be in violation or against the code of conduct or campus expectations of the school, then your acceptance may be rescinded, or you might be forced to decline the offer. However, holding unpopular views, even if they make you a terrible person (again, I don't know what was said, so I'm not saying you are!) doesn't usually violate these policies. It does depend on the school. Generally, breaking the law and/or violating policies on harassment and creating an unwelcome or "chilling" environment are potential reasons to kick someone out of graduate school (or, in some cases, rescind their acceptance). 

Also, generally, the standards/expectations for graduate students and medical students are understandably different. As a medical school graduate, you will have direct influence and responsibility over people's well-being. For most PhD holders, this is not the case. 

[WhyTry]

Wow, pre-meds really are as cut throat as i've heard huh?? Glad I did not major in bio...

I think you will be okay. A lot of grad students suffer from depression at some point in their academic careers and go to therapy, rather than getting kicked out.

I wouldn't think prospective doctoral students would go to that level. I could be wrong, but.. I promise I won't. hahaha

[seacloud]

1 hour ago, TakeruK said:

I can see why there are differences in "professionalism" expectations of medical school vs graduate school. 

I don't know the full story so I will withhold judgement. For graduate school, if your conduct is determined to be in violation or against the code of conduct or campus expectations of the school, then your acceptance may be rescinded, or you might be forced to decline the offer. However, holding unpopular views, even if they make you a terrible person (again, I don't know what was said, so I'm not saying you are!) doesn't usually violate these policies. It does depend on the school. Generally, breaking the law and/or violating policies on harassment and creating an unwelcome or "chilling" environment are potential reasons to kick someone out of graduate school (or, in some cases, rescind their acceptance). 

Also, generally, the standards/expectations for graduate students and medical students are understandably different. As a medical school graduate, you will have direct influence and responsibility over people's well-being. For most PhD holders, this is not the case. 

If there's anything that could be under those, it's the remarks I made that could be interpreted as me being at risk of hurting myself or others. They were of course made over a year ago and I haven't done anything to that effect, but would that be considered to be creating a "chilling" environment or threatening others?

1 hour ago, WhyTry said:

Wow, pre-meds really are as cut throat as i've heard huh?? Glad I did not major in bio...

I think you will be okay. A lot of grad students suffer from depression at some point in their academic careers and go to therapy, rather than getting kicked out.

I wouldn't think prospective doctoral students would go to that level. I could be wrong, but.. I promise I won't. hahaha

Neither did I, but I wanted to try med school because I liked the science of medicine and it has an excellent job market. I enjoyed research more and knew that since mid-college, but I thought of the difference in job security and scared myself into going for med school even though I was probably a better fit for grad school.

My problem, though, was not that I got depression in grad school. My problem was that I posted about it on a blog, complete with fears of "not being able to control if I" inflict harm on myself or others, and although I'm not in that place now, all it took was a particularly vengeful person (who might not even be pre-med...just someone who didn't like me for whatever reason) to sink me.

[TakeruK]

20 minutes ago, seacloud said:

If there's anything that could be under those, it's the remarks I made that could be interpreted as me being at risk of hurting myself or others. They were of course made over a year ago and I haven't done anything to that effect, but would that be considered to be creating a "chilling" environment or threatening others?

It's unpleasant to try to think up example scenarios of this type, for obvious reasons. But here's a generic one. If a student has a history of personal attacks on a certain group of people, and has expressed sentiments of violence, harm, exclusion, threats, etc. towards this group of people, it would contribute to creating an unwelcome and threatening environment. Basically if your actions will cause other people to feel like they are unwanted in a program, then you may be unwanted in that program.

Obviously at this level of generic-ness, it sounds like I am stating something very broad and that even a slight (unintentional) insult towards others will cause you to be kicked out for creating an "unwelcome" environment. However, this is not the case and I hope readers of this post will use their common sense and know what example actions may reasonably fall under this category and what won't. Sure, there are some actions that fall near the boundary line, but I don't think it's productive to discuss which these borderline cases here (also no need to reveal more than necessary). Getting an admission offer rescinded or kicked out of a program is a severe/extreme consequence and it only happens for actions at the same level of severity. 

In addition, since your case involved posts in the past (that are hopefully no longer online), most schools do expect people to change over time and I think time will factor into how this is handled if someone successfully gets the attention of admissions officers by spamming them with screenshots. And, I think it is more likely that the first step after receiving these messages about you would be a discussion with you about the content of the posts and what has happened since then, rather than an automatic decision without any input from you. I think that demonstrating that you are not in the same place as when you wrote whatever it was in the past would make a big difference. 

[seacloud]

2 hours ago, TakeruK said:

It's unpleasant to try to think up example scenarios of this type, for obvious reasons. But here's a generic one. If a student has a history of personal attacks on a certain group of people, and has expressed sentiments of violence, harm, exclusion, threats, etc. towards this group of people, it would contribute to creating an unwelcome and threatening environment. Basically if your actions will cause other people to feel like they are unwanted in a program, then you may be unwanted in that program.

Obviously at this level of generic-ness, it sounds like I am stating something very broad and that even a slight (unintentional) insult towards others will cause you to be kicked out for creating an "unwelcome" environment. However, this is not the case and I hope readers of this post will use their common sense and know what example actions may reasonably fall under this category and what won't. Sure, there are some actions that fall near the boundary line, but I don't think it's productive to discuss which these borderline cases here (also no need to reveal more than necessary). Getting an admission offer rescinded or kicked out of a program is a severe/extreme consequence and it only happens for actions at the same level of severity. 

In addition, since your case involved posts in the past (that are hopefully no longer online), most schools do expect people to change over time and I think time will factor into how this is handled if someone successfully gets the attention of admissions officers by spamming them with screenshots. And, I think it is more likely that the first step after receiving these messages about you would be a discussion with you about the content of the posts and what has happened since then, rather than an automatic decision without any input from you. I think that demonstrating that you are not in the same place as when you wrote whatever it was in the past would make a big difference. 

If someone were to do a full investigation on my previous online activity (which is what the med school did after they got the blog post), they would find in addition to that post certain political/social issue-related posts. None are particularly inflammatory, though they are weird in that they focused on campus social justice issues, in which I harshly criticized certain activists and used a collective term to refer to them that is derogatory, but rarely heard of outside the internet. Those too have been deleted but could be screenshotted by someone out to build a case against me. All of these are at least 2 years in the past, however.

As for the post that got me rescinded, the med school actually held a hearing with me in which I was to explain what I did. It was very much a formality though; they pretty much already decided the outcome before the hearing. Afterwards, they said that although I "did a good job at the hearing" and that I showed the appropriate remorse, it was decided that my violations of the technical standards were "very clear" and that forcibly withdrawing me from the institution (not dismissal) would be in their best interests. I was encouraged to apply to other med schools or grad schools as I see fit.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by seacloud

[E-P]

Assuming all this happened in the US, you might consider consulting an attorney.  A case could be made that they were illegally discriminating against you for health issues, which is protected under the ADA.

[seacloud]

 

32 minutes ago, E-P said:

Assuming all this happened in the US, you might consider consulting an attorney.  A case could be made that they were illegally discriminating against you for health issues, which is protected under the ADA.

Medical schools have a lot of leeway in terms of how they define "professionalism". Mental health issues weren't the only thing they found, though that was probably the "worst" given that in that post I mentioned that I was afraid of being a threat to myself/others. They also found posts talking about political and social issues and posts about my undergrad (and some measured criticisms of the culture of my undergrad). If I try to sue them on mental health issues, they could bring up the other stuff, which wouldn't be considered a problem in isolation but according to them part of a "pattern" of "unprofessional behavior" and they were concerned at how my online presence would impact my relationships with my classmates, superiors, and most importantly, patients.

Also, I'm not all too interested in being reinstated. All else being equal, I'd prefer doing research for a living, and I enjoy the culture I've found among the research-oriented people over the premed culture.

Edited February 8, 2018 by seacloud