College Applicants, Beware: Your Facebook Page Is Showing
Very interesting article in the WSJ today: College Applicants, Beware: Your Facebook Page Is Showing. I mention it because I have several nieces and nephews who have entered/will be entering college soon.
A new survey of 500 top colleges found that 10% of admissions officers acknowledged looking at social-networking sites to evaluate applicants. Of those colleges making use of the online information, 38% said that what they saw "negatively affected" their views of the applicant. Only a quarter of the schools checking the sites said their views were improved...New business idea: write a software service that scours the Internet for information about potential applications in order to help them protect their brands....
David Hawkins, director of public policy and research for the National Association for College Admission Counseling, a professional organization, says schools don't have time to scour the Internet systematically to check out thousands of applicants. But he says admissions officers at times receive anonymous tips, which may be from rival applicants, about embarrassing Facebook or MySpace material, such as a picture of a student drunk at an underage party.
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It's especially common when universities are awarding scholarships because it isn't hard to go online for a handful of finalists. "No one wants to be on the front page of the newspaper for giving a scholarship to a murderer," she says. "Everybody is trying to protect their brands."
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Marc Prablek, a senior at Ladue Horton Watkins High School in suburban St. Louis, considers Facebook information "out in the public" and fair game for colleges. The 17-year-old, with some 550 "friends," says, "I don't have anything bad on Facebook," but he may tweak his profile to be "more sophisticated."Marc, who plans to apply early to Stanford University, says he won't mention that he loves to read X-Men comic books. His Facebook literary picks currently include "Crime and Punishment" and "Pride and Prejudice."
Dude, Crime and Punishment? Come off it, man. Everybody sees through you.
I'm so glad you posted this. I'm spending tons of time this year teaching Internet safety to my classes and they don't believe me when I say that their Internet information is pretty much permanent in terms of college and work applications.
Thanks,
K