It seemed like a cool screen name when he selected it, in middle school. But five years later, when it was time to apply to college, Jeremy Woolf began to rethink his e-mail address. ”I found SexyJer13 to be inappropriate,” Mr. Woolf says. He set up a separate account under the name JerWoo and is now happily enrolled at Washington University in St. Louis.
The SexyJer13 problem is one shared by many students applying to college online. ”AOL became popular for us 1985 babies when we were in seventh grade, hence the cheesy, immature screen names,” says Nancy Borowick, a freshman at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y. Her first screen name, Cutie, now mortifies her. She thinks her newer account, FancyNancy, is an improvement.
”I know someone whose screen name is Twentyfourozcorona and he had a separate e-mail address he wrote on applications,” Ms. Borowick says. ”Schools today encourage prospective students to send in e-mails, so many fear the impression a school official would get if they saw a screen name like boycrazy4eva.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/18/education/technology-thinkb4applying-no-dopey-names.html?smid=pl-share