<p>Yes admissions officers understand young people. Indeed, many admissions officers are just out of college themselves. So, they know very well the good and bad that young people are capable of.</p>
<p>When it comes to the most selective colleges , they have such an overabundance of qualified applicants that character plays a big role in whether applicants are admitted. If there is anything that indicates that an applicant has an undesirable character, the admissions officers can pass that person over and select someone instead who is equally or even more qualified and doesn't raise questions about character.</p>
<p>Just like it would be stupid for applicants to write their college essays with humor that admissions officers might misinterpret or be repulsed by, it's just as dumb for applicants to put anything on the Internet that they wouldn't want an admissions officer, prospective employer, or their worst enemy to see -- ever. </p>
<p>Posting a smiling picture of friends that elicits a comment "great party lol" isn't going to hurt anyone. Posting smiling pictures of friends holding booze bottles or flashing could. Posting with profanity, sexist or racist language also could hurt anyone. </p>
<p>It's important to realize that there are many young people who don't drink and don't do things that adcoms would look askance at. Given a choice (and given the fact that many colleges are trying to resolve campus drinking problems) admissions officers would prefer to select students who don't seem to be heavy partiers instead of picking those who would seem on track to add to the campus alcohol problems.</p>
<p>I fail to see why this is such an issue. It's common knowledge that you may, or at some schools, will, be googled, and facebook is right up that alley. Just put it on private. I dont think adcoms care enough to hack into your profile. Having an open FB profile at this point is like using WEP internet or something - chances are you will be fine, but why risk it? </p>
<p>Anyone who had at least 1% of their head outside of the sand knew this had been coming. I do think this is nasty - but the internet does much more scary things than this.</p>
<p>!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There's a kid who has the same exact name as me, and his facebook picture is him sitting on a toilet with nothing but underwear on! </p>
<p>Even if adcoms don't snoop around facebook, people shouldn't go around taking or posting questionable pictures.
Once something goes to the internet, it can never be taken back.
Why would you want to provide the public with permanant self incriminating evidence?</p>
<p>One simple way to bypass all of this: make your facebook page PUBLIC after you submit applications. Then put a lot of good stuff in your profile information(ie put reading science magazines as activities), or just slap your resume onto there. Don't make it obvious, but I don't think colleges will suspect applicants of purposely changing their profile just for college apps, and they might just believe everything you put on your facebook profile because generally what people say on social networking sites is what they truly mean about school and their activities speak for whether they do the nerdy stuff or just hang out with friends all the time.</p>
<p>I have a dear friend who posts, literally, her life philosphy on her myspace page (it's a fascinating read, actually), but friends very, very few people (her husband, her nephew, her husband's best friend, two other people, a couple of bands, and me--and it took her <em>forever</em> to friend me!), probably in large part due to her job as a clinical psychologist--I imagine she would not want clients seeing her page! In this way, it is both very personal and very private...</p>
<p>The main problem I have with it is that comments could be misinterpreted. Adcoms aren't familiar with our inside jokes, so they may have no idea what a comment on our wall means.</p>
<p>I was showing my mom my facebook and she saw a picture of me and my friends at a party with a plastic cup of soda and thought it was beer. Why does plastic cup automatically = beer? Just asking.</p>
<p>It's weird to look at your myspace or facebook and see what could be misconstrued as illegal activities. There's another picture of me making the '09' (my graduation year) hand gesture but it's from far away so you can't exactly see what I'm doing. A friend left my a comment saying 'Nice gang sign. =P' It made me wonder if an adcom who saw that would think it's actually a gang sign. Haha, imagine me as a gang member. I'm still a bit shocked that adcoms actually do give thought to your myspace page. Weird.</p>
<p>According to a NACAC survey, at least 10% of college admissions officers are now going to those sites to check on applicants and likely more will do the same in the future, and 38% of those who look came away with negative opinions about applicants:</p>
<p>"True, I’ve never met Pearlstone, but to me that seems irrelevant. A blood relation in no way implies your authority to control or limit the distribution of information on Pearlstone that was otherwise freely available. The facebook was setup and administered by Pearlstone himself. His comments left on collegeconfidential were those he wrote and posted. To say that this information cannot be displayed or revealed is entirely unfounded"</p>
[quote]
In addition to the common application and letters of recommendation to worry about, todays college-bound students should give their Facebook profiles a second thought.</p>
<p>A Kaplan survey of 320 admissions officers from the countrys 500 top colleges and universities has uncovered that 10 percent of admissions officers have visited an applicants social networking site as part of their decision making process.</p>
<p>Also, according to that same Kaplan survey, 21 percent of colleges surveyed utilized social networking sites in order to learn about and recruit applicants. With more and more colleges factoring social networking sites into their evaluation process, most schools surveyed have no official policies regarding the use of social networking sites and have no plans to develop them.</p>
<p>In fact, it is this ambiguity and lack of policy that seems most frightening to prospective students. Without any policy in place, applicants cannot know whether their online individual sites will be visited, judged and weighed as part of their application. Additionally, with no defined policy, many schools permit admissions officers to visit individual sites for distinct reasons, while not reporting it as part of their official assessment process.</p>
<p>At Cornell, Jason Locke, director of undergraduate admissions, stated in an e-mail, Cornell University does not use social networking sites (in any systematic way) in the college admissions process.</p>
<p>However, he added, It is possible that an individual Facebook or MySpace page may come to [their] attention, but this would be an exception rather than the rule.
<p>I'm more worried about adcoms seeing my CC posts! I feel so tacky posting all about myself (I've posted some "chance threads") yet it's so addictive...</p>
<p>edit: WOWWW @ the Matthew Pearlstone story. I don't think I post anything that incriminating. Sad story, though.</p>
<p>What if a person has that he or she is gay? Or for the "Interested In" question is blank (which others interpret that you're gay)? Some of the religious schools discriminate or are homophobic against homosexuals.</p>
<p>Also, anybody can create a facebook/myspace page. What if somebody makes a fake page of another person and fills it with all sorts of foul things? I would not be happy about it.</p>
<p>Overall, I think it's a bad practice and one I believe the admission people should abolish...</p>
[quote]
Who says Facebook is the province of the young? Increasingly, the 30something bosses of naive recent college grads are proving adept at turning the social network against its earliest adopters
<p>Aaron Sorkin, a famous Hollywood film writer, is doing a film about the Facebook phenomena... Aaron</a> Sorkin to write Facebook film
[quote]
Aaron Sorkin is about to get a whole lot of friends on Facebook.</p>
<p>Sorkin, one of the town's biggest writers and show creators, is in negotiations to write an untitled film project about the founders of the popular social networking site that Scott Rudin will produce for Columbia.</p>
<p>Sorkin broke the news on Facebook when he opened up his own account.</p>
<p>"I understand there are a few other people using Facebook pages under my name -- which I find more flattering than creepy -- but this is me. I don't know how I can prove that but feel free to test me," he wrote before going on to talk about the movie project.