In light of /u/Ask_Admissions' recent doxxing, I became concerned with a particular point in the A2CMentors application process. Currently, mentors are recommended some mentees that the mod team thinks the mentor is compatible with, but the mentor is ultimately allowed to choose mentees from any of the accepted mentees. We initially thought this was fine because we ensured that the mentors were verified college students: but because many of the mentors are graduating high school seniors and cannot submit identifying documentation until later on in the process, there is nothing to prevent a bad actor that is not a college student from gaining access to the information in the mentee spreadsheet (the information that mentees have agreed to share with mentors). The information in this spreadsheet is not in any way compromising, and mentees have agreed to share this with mentors, but I take everyone's privacy and security seriously and felt it necessary to have a community discussion about this.

I am proposing the following change to the A2CMentors process. Would you prefer that mentors be allowed to pick their own mentees from the entire list of selected mentees (while continuing to recommend mentors to a few mentees), or would you prefer that mentors only receive information on the mentees that the moderation team selects (the mentor has the option to accept or deny the mentees that the moderation team assigns them)? The second option would still allow prospective mentors access to some information, but that information would be far less than the first option.

Please vote here: http://www.strawpoll.me/12834829

Note: This is not a perfect solution, as the process is still vulnerable to bad program moderators gaining access to the application information. While I fully trust all of the program moderators, I am aware that the process is not secure, and in order to maintain user privacy and security, I want to reiterate am the only person with access to the identifying verification documents and that these documents are completely safe.