<p>Just wondering since my friend brought it up...she said that college admissions officers have access to all facebook profiles and sometimes they factor in what they see on facebook in their decisions.Does anyone know if this is true?</p>
<p>If your not in college you can't get a facebook account. You need a e-mail address with an .edu at the end. I bet your talking about myspace.</p>
<p>Yeah myspace is more likely, though high schoolers can do facebook, but then the colleges wouldn't be in their network and thus can't access that profile.</p>
<p>I'm in high school and have a facebook, and so do a lot of my friends. --as long as someone invites you you can be a part of a network. (This is just in response to the first reply). They even made accomadations for high-schoolers.</p>
<p>i am also a high schooler with facebook. my school gives out .edu addresses, so i was able to get an account.</p>
<p>the privacy controls are such that people who aren't your friends or aren't in your network can't see your profile. college admissions officers, therefore, don't have access to your information.</p>
<p>unless of course they know someone in your network . . . which could mean someone who went to your high school or if youre in a "hometown" network, someone who lived in the same geographic area</p>
<p>then they could just ask that person to look you up. they wont do that for admissions decisions of course, maybe if you left a real impression on them they might out of pure curiousity</p>
<p>no matter how private its supposed to be though, doing something like making your picture you chugging a beer just isnt smart</p>
<p>[url=<a href="http://ben.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/07/your_profile_on.html%5DHere%5B/url">http://ben.mitblogs.com/archives/2006/07/your_profile_on.html]Here[/url</a>] is a commentary on the subject from an MIT admissions officer.</p>
<p>um, facebooks merged...a while ago...and I can see both my college friends and high school friends from my account.</p>
<p>If you don't want any college counselors to see your facebook photos, just change your privacy settings so that only your friends can see your complete profile. Simple, right?</p>
<p>See this</a> thread in the Parent's forum and this</a> blog entry and this</a> entry by the Assistant Dean of Admissions at UVa</p>
<p>Even though high school and college facebooks merged, nobody can see someone elses profile unless they are in your network or if they're listed as your friends. Other than that, no one can access your profile, so with that said, if you're concerned about privacy don't join a regional network because that's a public network.</p>
<p>Don't be naive. I am a parent and through my kids facebook or myspace I can find anything and I can then give that information to other adults who can do the same...do not put something on facebook or my space that you wouldn't want your Mom or your Grandmother or your prospective employer or an adcom to see. It is not an invasion of privacy if you post it on the world wide web....if I came to your house, opened the door, went to your room and read your diary that would be an invasion of privacy.</p>
<p>Maybe I'm being naive, but facebook is a tougher egg to crack than myspace [that's cake], maybe I'm missing something, but you can't access anyone's profile without a network relationship or a friend relationship, but hmmm, maybe you're a supreme hacker.</p>
<p>okay so it's like the Kevin Bacon six degrees of separation...I know somebody who knows somebody...etc. It really isn't that tough. It isn't a matter of hacking, it's a matter of knowing somebody with the right email address to get onto a network...</p>
<p>If a kid's scared of that, then he/she should just set privacy settings so only friends can view profile.</p>
<p>Agreed. But also, if you go by a different name and have an email address specific to colleges, they wouldn't be able to find you easily. And I doubt adcoms have enough time to sit and try to find someone's myspace/facebook/xanga/blogspot/etc.</p>
<p>Hey--shock and surprise, college admissions officers can register using .edu emails. They do (sometimes), as do security officers.</p>
<p>I am in high school and on facebook. I know that some admission officers are on facebook also, but it doesn't matter because I really have nothing to hide. My profile would probably work in my favor! Although I do agree that it is harder to see someone's profile on facebook than myspace, but jobs and colleges are more likely to use the former because they can just search your name to see if you are on it in the first place.</p>
<p>I think this whole thing about adcoms looking at your facebook is way overblown. Yes, in theory it is probably possible, if you dig around enough, to get access to any given applicant's profile. Yes, that is reason enough to use caution. However, it is way too time-consuming to facebook even a small percentage of applicants to all but the smallest schools. So I really doubt that widespread facebooking is happening. Even with Myspace, where you don't have to dig around a whole lot, I would guess it's still not worth the time.</p>
<p>My advice is to quit worrying about it, but still don't put pictures of yourself involved in questionably legal activity on facebook. That's not a good idea anyway.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Even with Myspace, where you don't have to dig around a whole lot, I would guess it's still not worth the time.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>If it's worth the time to read through your essays and all the rest of your application, they may well consider it worth the time to get a more candid and unrehearsed look at you.</p>
<p>They wouldn't need to look up all of their thousands of applicants. The shoo-ins and auto-rejects would still get in or out the regular way. But for those applicants on the bubble, who could blame the adcoms if they looked around for a little more information to help them decide one way or the other?</p>
<p>The fact is though, no college would openly admit, at least at this point in time, that facebook/myspace/online profiles can factor into a decision since there are privacy concerns and other such legal matters, so whatever it is they are doing, it's probably very informal and under the table.</p>