Hi there are some pictures/videos of me drinking underage on social media, some of which i can’t take down. I KNOW this isn’t ideal and it is my fault that I’m in this situation. I was wondering if anyone really knew how much colleges care that a high school applicant has drunk before?
Thank you.
They may care if you have been arrested and convicted of DUI. Also future employers may go snooping on social media for any public videos. Also posting inappropriate and illegal activity on social media shows immaturity, even for a high school student.
Chances are they won’t have the time to look up every single appplicant, but it can be a black mark on maturity if they do happen to find it
it’s extremely unlikely an admissions officer would have the time or inclination to look through your social media. Where it could come back to bite you is later when applying for jobs or internships. Last year I hired two college-age summer interns. Once we narrowed our choices down to the finalists I googled each candidate and took a look at their social media presence. Luckily it didn’t reveal anything negative about the candidates and in once case what we found made us more likely to hire the candidate. If I’d found pictures of a kid with a bong or a lot of red solo cup party pics I would have hesitated to hire that person, not because I’m so naive as to think underage people never drink or smoke, but because it would indicate a lack of judgement to put oneself in a position to have all those negative images out in cyberspace.
You don’t have full control over what your friends post and it’s not likely anyone will bother to snoop though your friends’ pages anyway but I would clean up you own on line presence. Delete those pics of you and your friends at parties and add a few wholesome pictures-you on a ski trip, with your little brother, playing an instrument, etc. Also check what groups you belong to and do the same. Delete the edgy political group and add something mainstream like a sports team or community service group. It’s also fair to ask your friends to delete or make private photos that don’t present you in a good light.
Typically colleges don’t search your social media unless they’re lead to believe they have a reason to. So, unless you think someone will be alerting your dream school of the pictures you probably don’t have to worry about this until internships/ jobs as others have mentioned. Still, I would do your best to at least have the few that are up set to private if you cannot remove them.
Yep. They’re very unlikely to come across those pictures. If they do, well, they may not be pleased, of course, but it’s just very unlikely.
Don’t worry about it. Make sure they aren’t on your social media page, and if you are tagged untag. They won’t see anything else really.