<p>All you have to do is be smart about this. For one, I don't drink, smoke pot, or engage in other illegal activity, so it's highly unlikely that pictures would surface of me doing those things. Next, I have my settings on high privacy. I've tested it. Finally, I untagged myself from all pictures, so it's going to be hard to find me. Remember that on Facebook, most people set their photo albums so they're visible to everyone, even if their profiles aren't. If you're tagged in any of those photos, people can see you. Since I figure that my friends know who I am, I don't need to be tagged in pictures.</p>
<p>Imagine having no drinking pictures and then being Beer Pong king in college. If I were adcom, I'd rescind admission on grounds of hypocrisy :P</p>
<p>hydrangea is correct nothing is private. You are not protected. Keep in mind that the sysops have access to everything.</p>
<p>"I wonder how the adults here would feel if they were fired from their jobs because of opinions they have disclosed online (here, for instance.)"</p>
<p>Any adult with good sense would never say anything on-line that they wouldn't say in any other public post. Adults with good sense also know that ANYTHING one posts on the Internet could come back to haunt them even years later. Nothing is private on the Internet, not even your e-mail. Just ask Sarah Palin, whose personal e-mail was hacked. And think about her D Bristol's boyfriend's blog that was seen around the world. Even if the settings had been set to private, some "friend" probably would have happily accepted financial offers from places like National Enquirer to reveal the site.</p>
<p>As I said before, I know an adult who lost their job because of something they'd posted on their Facebook or Myspace. The adult directed a program for youths, and had friended the youths in the program so the youths could see the adult's blog. Among the things the adult posted was how much they detested their job. Some of the youths took offense and showed the page to the adult's supervisor, who terminated the employee by citing a budget crunch. The adult never realized why they lost their job.</p>
<p>wait wait wait so you shouldnt have pictures of yourself completely ****ed drunk or high off your mind of facebook?</p>
<p>"wait wait wait so you shouldnt have pictures of yourself completely ****ed drunk or high off your mind of facebook?"</p>
<p>Umm, no! Will colleges actually take the time to look at your Facebook? I highly doubt it. But really, do you have to post your whole life story on the internet?
If you have doubts about putting a picture online, it shouldn't be on there. In fact, some would argue that you shouldn't have pictures of yourself on Facebook at all. In the end, it's your choice. But you are NOT justified in posting pictures on a public website and then getting angry if you face consequences because of them. Sorry, but when you decided to put the picture of you drinking with your buddies, you put yourself out there to be judged. It's like walking around downtown drunk and then getting angry at the people who disapprove. That's your problem.</p>
<p>The adult/teenager tension needs to stop on this issue. Adults don't need to emphasize their life experience in every defense they give on this issue. We understand that you are looking out for us and that you have lots of life experience. You are only making the discussion more emotional, however, by emphasizing this fact. The adult/child roles do not play a major factor in this discussion, so leave it alone. Teenagers don't need to jump on the bandwagon and argue this issue because they have questionable pictures on Facebook. This thread is not about you defending your personal choice; this is about the validity of college adcoms using Facebook pictures against teens as a WHOLE.</p>
<p>In private institutions, adcoms should be able to peruse Facebook as they wish, as long as they don't bypass any legal privacy standards. I don't think that Facebook profiles should really be a factor, but it's also not our right to stop them from considering whatever they want to in order to admit or deny a student. As long as adcoms stay within legal limits, they should be able to use any factor for or against a student, given that the college is not state-funded.</p>
<p>"In private institutions, adcoms should be able to peruse Facebook as they wish, as long as they don't bypass any legal privacy standards."</p>
<p>So just by closing our profiles, we would be safe and sound, right.</p>
<p>Well, there are multiple ways that someone could find out about your bad habits on facebook.
Tagged pictures of you in other people's photo albums are the biggest culprit. Any information about you that is accessible to the general public is information that is fair game for adcoms.</p>
<p>
[quote]
This theory is just stupid an ridiculous. Admissions officers do no have time to look applicants on facebook, nor do they feel the need to. They know facebook wont give them any useful information about the applicant.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This past spring I went to the New York City GC/College Counselor version of the Exploring College Opions roadshow with reps from Stanford, Harvard, Penn, Georgetown & Duke. More than one officer stated that they will and do look at myspace/facebook pages. One Admissions director when as far as to say that he used the contents of an applicant's myspace (applicant was a musician and posted his music on his my space page) to advocate for that student in committe (the student was ultimately accepted). Remember they also are operating from a perspective of the best predictor fo future behavior is relative past behavior. </p>
<p>This posted a slew of questions from counselors at both public and the most elite prep schools in the city as to how we should advise our students concerning the contents of their face book/my spaces.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I mean most of these kids go on to get drunk anyway once they get into college.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Does this mean that because there are pictures posted of you blasted and you talk about how much you drank at the party recently, that a college should turn a blind eye to it? Not to get into any politcal debates, but look how quickly Bristol Palin's boyfriend myspace pages and comments were released to the media.</p>
<p>Students need to keep in mind that the internet has made the world much smaller and your would be suprised at that you are less than 6 degree of separation from people. The things that you post today could very well bite you in the butt tomorrow.</p>
<p>I don't understand the issue here. Are we talking about whether schools theoretically could look at your FBs, or whether they should be allowed to, or whether they should?</p>
<p>I don't see a problem with it. Don't put pictures of you that you wouldn't want adcoms to see. Wow! The end. </p>
<p>I think it's funny that some people think that they have a right to privacy while posting comments and pictures on a social networking site.</p>
<p>I realized that when I got my first job. I cleaned up all questionable pictures off my page.</p>
<p>Whether or not it's moral to use people's personal websites as a determining factor for college/jobs/etc, officials still do it. So keep your pages clean and be careful with what you post! The rest of the world can see it. Or find way to.</p>
<p>I think this was answered but I don't want to go through all 4 pages. </p>
<p>Can't you only see someone's profile if you're their friend? You can see their profile picture, but you can only see their wall and their photos if they accept a friend request.</p>
<p>it depends on your privacy settings. it would be wise to set it so only friends can see anything of yours. </p>
<p>it also helps if you have a really common name so that adcoms can't figure out which one is you :p</p>
<p>^hahah!! sucks for those of us with the one in a million name though.</p>
<p>Doesn't matter if you do have a one in a million name if your privacy settings are friends only. The end of facebook=when colleges and employers have unlimited access to everything about you.Talk about then having photos of you with national geographic and newsweek in the background or something lol. It won't happen though, so people need to be smart and have it to private before they go to college.</p>
<p>To be honest I'm not at all proud of the "college" pictures of me drunk outa my mind. At first they were cool but now it's like a badge of shame. I just don't agree with college adcoms though; it's invasion of privacy (wait, we live the U.S. there is no privacy). Here comes Big Brother. </p>
<p>Like others have said Facebook and MySpace are mostly used by high school and college students. . .that criteria right there spells stupidity.</p>
<p>Related article of interest that shows that tax officials also read social networking sites.</p>
<p>"Oklahoma college students who bragged on MySpace that their party business had served thousands of revelers have been hit with a state tax bill of $320,000.</p>
<p>The Oklahoman reported Sunday that 2007 tax documents indicate that the party business Kegheadz hosted more than 100 events over nearly five years.</p>
<p>But co-founder Julius Baroi estimates his business hosted just over 20 parties in 1 1/2 years, netting less than $2,000. Another co-founder, Jordan Glover, says tax officials were misled by "hype" on the business' MySpace site that was designed to attract more partiers."
MySpace</a> boast nets partiers $320K Okla. tax bill | Weird News | Idaho Statesman</p>
<p>Well, here is some proof that perhaps some admissions officers do, indeed have time:</p>
<p>Wired</a> Campus: Admissions Officers Peek at Applicants' Facebook Profiles - Chronicle.com</p>
<p>From the article posted by franglish, which was published just 2 days ago.'</p>
<p>"One in 10 admissions officers has looked at an applicant’s social-networking profile, according to a report released yesterday by the test-prep company Kaplan Inc. Of those who peeked, 38 percent said what they saw had a negative effect on their evaluation of the student. Fewer — a quarter — said the effect was positive.</p>
<p>Admissions officers’ decisions to look or not are mostly up to them, Kaplan said. “The vast majority of schools we surveyed said they have no official policies or guidelines in place regarding visiting applicants’ social-networking Web sites — nor are they considering plans to develop them,” Jeff Olson, executive director of research for Kaplan’s test-prep and admissions division, said in a written statement.</p>
<p>The company surveyed 320 institutions among U.S. News & World Report’s and Barron’s top 500. It also polled admissions officers at professional schools, finding that 9 percent in business, 14 percent in medicine, and 15 percent in law looked at applicants’ social-networking sites when making admissions decisions."</p>
<p>Shouldn't adcoms have some understanding of children? What is ridiculous about this is anyone with a teenager in the house knows that to kids a "friend" in the Facebook meaning of "friend" can be someone they just met at camp, or in science class, or at a party who they decide they might want to chat with. Period. To assume that whatever that "friend" says or does relates to the owner of the page is completely absurd. What concerns me is that some "friend" could write "Great party, lol!" and an adcom could assume it was some wild drinking orgy, when all it really was was a sleep-over in which the kids never slept.</p>