Facebook is fun, but what if a college admissions officer sees that photo of you making out with your boyfriend while wearing your Sexy Kim Jong Il Halloween costume? A Sparkler writes:
I am a freshman in highschool and I don’t have a facebook account. I figure that it will be better for college admissions if I am pretty much invisible online. The problem is that all my friends have facebook accounts and I feel kind of left out when they talk about everything on facebook. Any advice? Should I remain invisible online or not? Thank you.
Attention high school juniors and seniors!!! August is here, and that means it’s time to start cleaning up your profile, page, website, blog, etc. Why? Because in terms of admissions, these sites and pages might as well be application material deliberately submitted to your top 5 choices.
According to USA Today, 41% of colleges admit to using social networking sites when reviewing applications. Forty-one percent. That means if you apply to 6 schools (that's the average number 2009 graduates applied to this year), at least two of them read your favorite quotes, saw your Snow Dance pictures, and know you were "sooooooo bored" on August 8.
Although peering at applicants' status updates and pictures seems conniving, deceitful, and downright CIA-like, if your profile is public, well, there's no reason admissions counselors shouldn't look at it. And colleges aren't just trying to be nosy. As the director of the Center for Marketing Research at the UMass Dartmouth, Nora Ganim Barnes, says, "'Colleges and universities are not trying to be punitive. They're trying to protect themselves...No school wants to give out a prestigious scholarship and then find a picture with a (recipient) with a lamp on the head.'"
Wondering how counselors figure out which Joe Baker profile matches the Joe Baker who applies to their school? It's easy.
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