<p>I got a friend who is applying to Brown and apparently someone called him a "****** bag" on Facebook and according to him, Brown Admission Office sent him an email inquiring about why someone called him a ******bag. Is this possible? Do Admission offices actually keep tabs on the facebook of applicants? It seems highly unlikely.</p>
<p>hmm this seems unlikely and even if it does happen it is definitely unethical/ possibly illegal. Why should those applicants who have a facebook account be judged differently? and what if a student has discussed his acceptance to another university? then the snooping college could decide not to admit based on this biased information to protect their yield, which is definitely not allowed.</p>
<p>Xargon, if the Facebook page in question is publicly accessible, what makes you think it is illegal for anyone to look at it? If a person chooses to make himself identifiable in a public forum, he should understand that anyone can access the information on that forum. You may find it distasteful for a college to “snoop” on public Facebook pages, but that doesn’t make it illegal, nor is it illegal for the college to use that publicly-available information as part of admission decisions (though it does seem kind of creepy). There have been numerous articles in the mainstream press about colleges and employers checking out public social networking sites, and advising extreme discretion and the use of privacy settings.</p>
<p>Legality aside, I do find it strange that a college would ask someone to explain why he was called a nasty name by someone else. After all, people can’t control what other people post about them, nor explain others’ motivations. It would make more sense for the college to ask someone why he used a nasty name to refer to another person.</p>
<p>I have heard about colleges randomly checking FBs. Its definitely not illegal but im not sure how often it happens. I cleaned my fb just in case…</p>
<p>You can just lock down your security settings so only friends can see your profile…just saying…</p>
<p>the illegal part I meant was by finding out which other colleges accepted the particular student and using that to protect their yield. Even if it is not illegal, it is unethical and frowned upon by admissions officers</p>
<p>i have conversed with my regional admit officer on facebook</p>
<p>so i would assume that if anything concerned her, she could have changed her decision.</p>