<p>Clearly the message learned on these posts is to be careful. Sometimes you mark your sites as "private" but someone has taken a screen shot and e-mailed it or saved it... nothing on the Internet is private. </p>
<p>There are even more ways that the Internet can hurt you. From the NY Times article referred to by another poster:</p>
<p>"Occasionally students find evidence online that may explain why a job search is foundering. Tien Nguyen, a senior at the University of California, Los Angeles, signed up for interviews on campus with corporate recruiters, beginning last fall, but he was seldom invited.</p>
<p>A friend suggested in February that Mr. Nguyen research himself on Google. He found a link to a satirical essay, titled "Lying Your Way to the Top," that he had published last summer on a Web site for college students. He asked that the essay be removed. Soon, he began to be invited to job interviews, and he has now received several offers.</p>
<p>"I never really considered that employers would do something like that," he said. "I thought they would just look at your r</p>
<p>"A recent survey of 453 admissions departments at colleges and universities in 49 states found one out of four are using blogs, search engines, or social networking sites to evaluate applicants.</p>
<p>“While certainly the traditional factors will still play dominant roles in selecting applicants for admission or rejection, students need to understand that their social network sites are being examined by colleges and universities,” Dr. Nora Barnes, the researcher, said. “The content of their sites could have far-reaching effects on their academic futures if they are not careful.” MPR:</a> News Cut: Can online antics hurt students' chances for college?</p>
<p>
[quote]
A tutor responsible for admissions at Cambridge University has admitted that he checks out applicants' personal pages on Facebook. </p>
<p>Dr Richard Barnes, senior tutor at Emmanuel College, said that the site was recommended as a good source of information by contacts who work in Cambridge.</p>
<p>"This has been the year in which I joined Facebook," Dr Barnes wrote in the college magazine.</p>
<p>"I have to confess that I actually joined to see what I was missing and to check up (discreetly) on applicants for a college position. I had been alerted to the value of this by some of our members in the city."</p>
<p>However, a spokesman for Cambridge University dismissed Dr Barnes's comment as a "throwaway line".</p>
<p>A UK poll of more than 2,000 consumers and 600 employers in 2007 found that a quarter of employers have rejected job applicants after discovering "dodgy" personal information about them on the web.</p>
<p>The poll by business social network firm Viadeo found that UK bosses increasingly checked the "internet reputations" of job applicants based on their postings across blogs, forums and other web 2.0 sites.
<p>If you are concerned about this, why not use it to your advantage? Why not set up your Facebook or MySpace page to make you as appealing as possible?</p>
<p>Also, if you are concerned with admissions checking places like this, my suggestion is to drop the leetspeak. If I were an admission officer and saw a potential candidate using it, it would turn me off a lot quicker than some pictures of the candidate holding a beer.</p>
<p>ThatPoshGirl your post was really upsetting to me. High School students are 16-18 years old right? Colleges want creative students who are not robots right? All sorts of behavior is tolerated on campus without punishment and I think everyone knows what I mean. What are these admissions staff people thinking when they investigate students online in their most creative private time. Its like reading their diaries! I find it hypocritical. Id like access to their personal home computers-now that would be interesting I bet! Obviously they are asking you to do as THAT POSH GIRL suggests create a phony robotic likeable admissions friendly persona. Every generation has a language code and behavior that the previous generation doesnt find comfortable ( parents had Elvis- The Beatles). Adcoms who investigate students and hold them responsible in spite of excellent work that they have submitted are just begging for more corruption in the process to make themselves feel like respectable border patrol. I suppose I should hide the fact that I enjoy certain movies, friends, the way I dress, if they would find all of that objectionable. This is a dangerous invasion of privacy in my opinion. I guess what they really want is a 16 year old who thinks like a 50 year old that is if the 50 year old is working in a corporate setting for 30 years.</p>
<p>" What are these admissions staff people thinking when they investigate students online in their most creative private time. Its like reading their diaries!"</p>
<p>Not true. Things posted on the Internet are -- PUBLIC, not private like a diary would be.</p>
<p>" Colleges want creative students who are not robots right? "</p>
<p>"Creativity" isn't the same as using drugs, drinking underage or breaking the law.</p>
<p>"All sorts of behavior is tolerated on campus without punishment and I think everyone knows what I mean."</p>
<p>Nope. Even on campuses with parting cultures, students caught with drugs or drinking underage can face campus or local police disciplinary/legal action. </p>
<p>Administrators at party schools aren't happy with that designation, and don't go out of their way to find more students who are looking to party.</p>
<p>"Nope. Even on campuses with parting cultures, students caught with drugs or drinking underage can face campus or local police disciplinary/legal action."</p>
<p>fwiw, you'd be shocked with how much people get away with. at my school, about 500 people gather on the MAIN GREEN to smoke up on 4/20 at 4:20. with school police everywhere....</p>
<p>My uncle works at the admissions office of one of the Ivy Leagues. They do, in certain circumstances, "google" you. However, they have a special program that brings up anything...blogs, pictures, facebook, myspace, etc. They have access to everything if they want it. Now, they aren't going to do this to every single applicant...what a waste of time! But employers do it too. Don't think that you are safe if it's set to private, because how private is it really?</p>
<p>Like Northstarmom said : things posted on the internet are PUBLIC. Anyone, including colleges and employers CAN and DO google:</p>
<p>
[quote] Oh, no, the dean of admissions Googled my website!</p>
<p>By Alex Kingsbury</p>
<p>*We are sorry to inform you that your application for admission to Winston Smith Memorial University has been denied. We were all prepared to offer you a spot in our freshman class this fall, but when we Googled you, we found three outstanding warrants for your arrest, plus there is a photograph of a naked derri</p>
<p>[edit]: "leetspeak" is often something like "omg l33tsp3ak cya l8er!", involving many jargon-like words composed of both letter and numerals and whatnot. Also, it annoys the hell out of me. </p>
<p>Well, I do make sure that I use proper grammar on basically every single one of my facebook posts or whatever, but what I hear is that no, they don't check your facebook unless they believe your character/integrity is in jeopardy (i.e. a tipoff from a reliable source saying you drink, etc.) Come on. They don't have TIME to go through all the pictures/groups/music interests or whatever. </p>
<p>I sort of wish that they'd go through mine, though. Then I could show them what a spontaneous, fun-loving person I tend to be, and make sure that they know that I'm a big fan of Douglas Adams and Ron Paul. Take that!</p>
<p>I have a few pictures of myself with alcohol - decent pictures, such as wine at a dinner table - on my facebook, but these pictures make up, say, 5% of my facebook pictures ? And were uploaded over a year ago. And I was of legal drinking age in my country. My facebook is also on private, you can't even see my profile exists without me adding you first.
And my name is modified. </p>
<p>I hope I need not be worried - that would be ridiculous.</p>
<p>I've never understood how admissions officers get the the time to check facebook or any of this extraneous crap people worry over. Many schools get over 30k applicants that need to be reviewed in able 45 days. That's what 750 per day?</p>
<p>My Yale interviewer told me flat-out that she checked my facebook before our meeting (and was pleased to find that I had great taste in movies and quotes, and listed lots of great interests and activities haha).</p>
<p>Don't know if they check facebook, but have heard of universities checking students facebook. Although from what I understand facebook is handy as a college student.</p>
<p>To all of u ppl who are worried about this: Some 1 mentioned it b4.. the admissions committee has THOUSANDS of apps to look over.. they arent going to spend hours looking on people's facebooks. The only exception is if there is some 1 like hookem who goes on an interview and they actually have a private meeting with them. And even if they did just set all your things to private. Some 1 also mentioned b4 that they go on "friend of friends" facebooks. That STILL wouldn't matter b/c if you set your privacy settings the right way, those people cant see any of your stuff either. That goes with myspace, friendster, etc etc. Btw to that milkmagn dude..thats messed up. Yeah, its hard to get into college, but thats just low. Quite frankly if you get a college such as Syracuse for example that judges their admissions decisions on personality (along with academics and ec's of course) then that will probably hurt your chances as well.</p>
<p>what if you don’t have a facebook, but other people wrote about you on facebook or other people from school made a page about you that perhaps could be slightly innapropriate?
not drinking, jsut like the normal teenage conversations filled with stuff that’s tasteless or crappie?<br>
what if someone you know writes to another person talking crap about you.<br>
like what if your friend talks bad stuff to another one of his friends?<br>
you weren’t directly involved and you don’t have facebook;
yet, someone else you know talks about you on facebook perhaps talking bad things about you?</p>