How anonymous is thegradcafe?

[ConventionalWisdumb]

Hello all,

I am debating revealing personal info (no name or location) such as details of my applications and circumstances surrounding them that might identify me to admissions personel or department faculty...Do they go on thegradcafe? or am I being paranoid? Information I want to reveal is to get some perspectives on my applications, but its personal in nature. THoughts?

[bgk]

Hello all,

I am debating revealing personal info (no name or location) such as details of my applications and circumstances surrounding them that might identify me to admissions personel or department faculty...Do they go on thegradcafe? or am I being paranoid? Information I want to reveal is to get some perspectives on my applications, but its personal in nature. THoughts?

I'm not sure what you mean by "How anonymous is thegradcafe". The only people who can see your email address are the administrators. Beyond that your anonymity is determined by how much information you post. If you don't want anyone to be able to deduce your real identity don't post at all. Otherwise there's always a small chance someone can recognize you, be it by your list of schools, research interest, or even your writing style and choice of words.

Keep in mind whatever you post, it's here to stay! We don't remove posts.

Have fun.

[newms]

Hey ConventionalWisdumb,

It's always best when posting online to assume that whatever you say could be traced back to you. So it's always advisable not to post anything that you could regret later.

[Eigen]

It has been shown multiple times lately that Adcoms do indeed come here- and post. Whether that's the case for some fields and not others, I'm not sure...

But yeah, there's certainly a risk that whatever you post here could be seen by an Adcomm or a potential PI.

[neuropsych76]

Just be smart about your posts and you should be fine. While it's possible someone could potentially identify you (though I'm guessing they would have to be looking for you in the first place) as long as you don't say anything terrible there isn't much harm posting things on here. If anything adcoms would see you're really dedicated to graduate school (hopefully!)

[Kathiza]

I do reveal quite a bit about me and I'm sure if adcoms go to the board, they could identify me in an instant (if I applied to their school). But I handle this just like I handle everything I put on the internet: I don't say anything I don't want to be public and related to my person. So if adcoms identify me and read my postings, they won't find anything they could hold against me. I don't say anything bad about anyone (oh well, I once accused one user of messing with the board, which he was not, then I apologized), I don't rank schools, I don't name favourites (I don't have one, to be honest...), I don't post anything I wouldn't want an adcom to know. And that's probably how you should do it too.