<p>My son thought this was creepy. How common is this and will it count against him if he ignores the officer? My son would like to get some merit scholarships. Is not interacting with the schools via facebook going to count against him? He actually is a sqeaky clean kid but this is like handing a stranger your diary.</p>
<p>i don’t think he should accept.</p>
<p>i’m not sure how the scholarship system works, but doesn’t financial aid handle that and not admissions?</p>
<p>Accept, but have your son add him to a list so that he can only see some of the wall posts.</p>
<p>I would not, simply because my “professional life” (in your son’s case, college applications) is separate from my personal life.</p>
<p>Furthermore, there is no benefit. All it takes is one off-color joke from a friend to raise red flags all over the place. Your son cannot anticipate everything that is posted on his wall, nor can he control all of his FB friends.</p>
<p>I would just let it rot (i.e., neither ignore nor accept).</p>
<p>This is happening more and more. Employers and it appears college admissions officers want to see if you are “worthy”. I can see both sides of this one. Employers don’t really want morally bankrupt individuals working for them. Same with colleges regarding students. But then again, we want to keep our private lives private. Tough call.</p>
<p>I look at it this way, the facebook account your student is being asked to ‘friend’ is not the personal account for that individual, but one created specifically for admissions. They are not revealing their entire life and that of their friends, nor should your son. I understand it is becoming more common. It is not uncommon for students to join ‘groups’ of pages for schools or organizations. I don’t know if this poses the same security concerns.</p>
<p>I’m not sure the most politically correct for your son to handle this. I believe it does require a follow up saying why he did not accept. Perhaps a note thanking him for the personal follow up, however as a rule he does not ‘friend’ adults other than his parents. Follow this with something like, I sincerely appreciate you understanding.</p>
<p>I’m sure you/your son will think of a tactful way of navigating this. In my opinion, there are just too many things that can go wrong that are out of your son’s control. A picture of him that makes him ‘look’ like he’s doing something questionable when he really isn’t can be tagged. Yes, he can untag himself, however if other people see it first untagging yourself only means they don’t see it twice. Putting people on lists where they only see part of your profile can make it look like you are hiding things. My son’s pretty squeaky himself, however he has to watch his account and delete things off his wall that other people post using language he wouldn’t, or insinuating things just to be fresh. I’d avoid it if possible. JMHO.</p>
<p>Here’s what I would do:</p>
<p>Ignore the firend request (don’t accept or decline it). Change the account’s privacy settings and make the account private. If the officer contacts him by email of something and asks him why he hasn’t accepted the request, just have your son say something like he hasn’t used his Facebook account in over a year and doesn’t plan on using it in the future. Admissions officers have no right to invade applicant’s personal lives and it would suck if your son wasn’t accepted to a school because of something on his Facebook account.</p>
<p>This would be different if he “liked” say for example the University of Texas Admissions page or the University of Texas page. In this case it is a real person that contacted your son and this person can go through his personal life if he were to accept the friend request.</p>
<p>This is kind of a lose/lose situation. If your son accepts, the admissions officer will look through all of his posts and pictures and find some SOMETHING and misinterpret it to use against your son. If your son declines or ignores, then the admissions officer has reason to suspect that your son has something on his page that he wouldn’t want an admissions officer reading. Contact the officer and tell him that you feel it is out of line and an invasion of privacy to friend your son on Facebook. That way, the admissions officer can’t see your son’s page, and it’s not because your son ignored him.</p>
<p>Either friend them with a “limited profile view”, or ignore it.</p>
<p>No good would come about “OMG this is an invasion of privacy” or “sorry, no adults.”
Either comes off as hiding something and/or strange. If you don’t accept or deny, the admissions officer won’t know if your kid even uses facebook that much. And, yes, I’d make the kid’s profile private- I think that anyone under 18 should have a friends only/can’t find in search profile.</p>
<p>Did your kid join any facebook groups for that college? Chances are, it’s simply some admission officer using the ‘find friends by e-mail’ or a routine ‘let’s friend all applicants’ request. I doubt they’re that interested in the kid, aside from admissions.</p>
<p>Either accept with limited view, or ignore it with no explanation. No big deal.</p>
<p>Personally, I would “accept” with a limited view. </p>
<p>I would block the admissions officer from “tagged photos” but I would permit him to view my “albums”, “wall”, etc. This shouldn’t come off as too suspicious because this is a somewhat common Facebook practice, sometimes even among actual friends.</p>
<p>Here is how I see it. Given that this officer isn’t some pervert, he is bound to have reviewed hundreds and hundreds of student profiles. No student is perfect. There is bound to be blemishes in every profile here and there and no rational officer would expect a student’s profile to be perfect.</p>
<p>All your son has to be is better than 5/10 other applicants. If your son is really “squeaky clean” and composed, as you claim, he should have nothing to worry about. Given that the officer actually has taken an interest in your child, he could very well be impressed with your son’s profile because there is a scale from good to bad.</p>
<p>Also, your son is bound to be penalized if he doesn’t accept. I would expect an admission officer to have the common sense not to penalize those who are open and honest and “accept” the friend request. Therefore, an applicant under scrutiny that doesn’t “accept” would either be assumed by default 1) average (this could be a Facebook profile with some profanity and allusions of underage drinking!) or 2) below average for shady behavior and not accepting.</p>
<p>Don’t view this as an “intrusion of your privacy”. View it as an opportunity to show off how great your son really is!</p>
<p><a href=“Be%20aware%20that%20your%20son%20might%20really%20be%20a%20sloppy,%20party%20animal%20while%20you’re%20not%20around%20in%20which%20case%20he%20should%20%22ignore%22%20the%20request.%20Let%20your%20son%20decide%20for%20himself%20whether%20he’s%20clean%20because%20parents%20often%20don’t%20know%20their%20own%20children%20as%20well%20as%20they%20think.”>I</a>*</p>
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<p>Encourage your child to lie? How is that beneficial?</p>
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<p>If it’s personal, don’t put it on Facebook for the whole world to see!</p>
<p>I set up a new email address and a new facebook profile this summer just for colleges.</p>
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<p>Or, make your Facebook personal. That way it’s not an issue either.</p>
<p>And you’re forgetting that one cannot control every single person on one’s friends list.</p>
<p>How about letting the admissions officer friend one of the student’s parents? If he justs wants to pass on info, that would work just as well.</p>
<p>I like Griffen’s idea of a “professional” facebook page. I don’t invite client’s to parties I host for close friends, and I don’t take close friends to business meetings. The Adcom is using a professional page to contact your student, so a separate facebook for dealing with adcoms would be appropriate.</p>
<p>I have counselled my kids to make everything private - for close friends eyes only and no listing available on searches. I even discourage them from friending grandparents/older relatives - the generational difference just begs for misinterpretation, and you cannot control the dumb things teenagers say to each other on facebook. For the most part, these relatives are just looking for a way to keep current with the kids lives (all live OOS and far away), so I friend all of the relatives and share the pictures and news they are looking for.</p>
<p>This may be a good time to remind students that they may want to create a new, more professional-sounding e-mail address for use with colleges, just in case your current one is “pokemonfan” or “PartEanimul”</p>
<p>^^so funny but good advice!</p>
<p>Surprised that admissions officers have the time to befriend people on Facebook. One thing I would have your S do is to go through his Facebook postings and clean up what ever can be cleaned up. The objective can be fairly benign, the AO just wants to reach out to students with similar interests, or it could be trying to see if there is anything that provides warning signals (i.e. even innocent comments on cheating, or that someone played hooky etc), that could be used in admissions decisions.</p>
<p>At the worse case, it could be more sinister. So I would be very careful. One thing I would endorse is the suggestion to create a second facebook account which is professional and limited to professional contacts. </p>
<p>Please warn your children that Facebook is not private, even with high privacy settings your privacy is not assured. A student make a comment in a private space which could be transmitted by someone else and no longer remain private.</p>
<p>Also, AO’s may be trying to get a sense of which schools the student is applying, so any comment on Facebook in the next few months should be made with caution.</p>
<p>While caution is advisable, the most likely reason a college rep wants to friend a student is to promote the college.</p>
<p>“Encourage your child to lie? How is that beneficial?”</p>
<p>Right, because first you allow your son to tell white lies about facebook, and next thing you know, he’s out on the street selling crack. Get real. How would telling that little lie be detrimential in any way?</p>
<p>“If it’s personal, don’t put it on Facebook for the whole world to see!”</p>
<p>What if a friend posted something inappropiate on his wall and the admissions officer caught sight of it? Didn’t think of that, did you Mr. Morally righteous pants?</p>