Few colleges check applicants’ social media posts – SFGate

• Few colleges check applicants’ social media posts – SFGate

  Social media vigilance for potential college applicants. Keep a squeaky clean online presence and reputation because you don’t know who is googling you.

  tags: education learning social media media college universities admissions

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  • Young people are wise to be vigilant about their online presence."

  • Admissions officers don’t Google you, hunt you down on Twitter, or hack your settings on Facebook – usually.

  • 29% look online

    Of the 422 admissions officers surveyed by Kaplan this year, 122 – or 29 percent – said they have conducted an online search of an applicant. Slightly more, 131, said they have visited an applicant’s social networking page. Of those, 39 found something that negatively impacted the application.

  • Fewer than 1 in 3 admissions officers say they check students’ social media postings or Google them when evaluating applications, according to a forthcoming 2013 survey from Kaplan, the test prep company.

  • admissions officers are still sufficiently appalled at the idea of invading the privacy of prospective students that any audacious posts are still somewhat shielded.

  • applicants who still feel it’s risky to trust in the moral rectitude of college officials may take comfort in the sheer impracticality of Googling everyone.

  • California passed a law prohibiting colleges from requiring students to provide social media information.

  • California colleges use other methods to check on students.

  • "We don’t have the bandwidth to use social media in that fashion."

  • Suppose an applicant asked the college to look at a link – say, the student plays a jaw-dropping rendition of Prokofiev‘s Piano Concerto No. 3 on YouTube – "I might – if I had time," Osgood said. "But mostly I don’t."

  • Yet some students are so cautious that they won’t even follow the Facebook page of a college they care about because it could let the college see their information, said Luis Lecanda, assistant director of admissions at Santa Clara University.

  • Getting into college is very competitive – it’s like running for president," she said. "You have to cover up and clean up your reputation and background. I have friends who go out on the weekends and put up a foggy picture (online) so it’s obvious they’re under the influence. I feel like (they) are either unaware that colleges do look them up, or they’re too confident."

    At Pomona, another of the Claremont Colleges, looking up students is not a formal part of the admissions process.

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