Bizarre "home" email populated...

[Furcifera]

Okay, so I completed my applications a couple weeks ago. I got an email from Duke this morning to start some sort of status check account, which I did. Then I notice in their "applicant information" section, they have both my "preferred" email address (the one I gave them while applying) and a "home" email address, which was my very first (as in, created at 13 yrs old) email address! How on earth was this populated? I would never have supplied it. Nor am I rocking my first (circa 2001) laptop, more's the pity. Do I now have to check all my applications for embarrassing early teen intrusions?!

[TakeruK]

How creepy!! I can think of two possibilities though:

1. Did you apply to Duke for undergrad? They might have connected any old information from any earlier application and auto-populate. I know that many schools have software to avoid multiple entries for the same people and they really want to consolidate/merge entries when possible.

2. Did you use a browser that has auto-complete on? Maybe for some reason, your browser filled in that form for you automatically and you didn't notice? 

[Furcifera]

On 12/24/2015 at 10:44 AM, TakeruK said:

How creepy!! I can think of two possibilities though:

1. Did you apply to Duke for undergrad? They might have connected any old information from any earlier application and auto-populate. I know that many schools have software to avoid multiple entries for the same people and they really want to consolidate/merge entries when possible.

2. Did you use a browser that has auto-complete on? Maybe for some reason, your browser filled in that form for you automatically and you didn't notice? 

Hi, TakeruK; thanks for the reply. At your prompting and with a couple months to think it over I realized that while I didn't apply to Duke for undergrad, I did in fact attend a get-girls-interested-in-science summer camp (obviously it didn't take. Humanities, what, what!) organized through Duke when I was in middle school. I'm actually a bit impressed they hold onto data that long.