<p>"With the deadline for Yales early applicants only two days away, would-be Elis trying to increase their chances of admission need not delete their Facebook accounts just yet. "</p>
<p>But why? Can't you only see profiles/info/photos/walls ONLY if you set it as 'open' to any network or something? I mean...i thought only friends could see those? Kind of confused. I mean I dont have anything provocative on any of these things, but Im just curious.</p>
<p>It's the fault of people who don't alter their default (ooh, assonance ! ) privacy settings on Facebook/myspace/livejournal/friendster....(lol, in order of utility..) and let their profile be open to the world.</p>
<p>My privacy settings are on what I like to call "Richard Cheney", so while I'll probably be deactivating (not deleting) my account pretty soon, an admissions officer that doesn't want to see rightward political leanings and copious sarcasm in wall posts isn't going to nix me anytime soon.</p>
<p>(Then again, I'm pretty sure an admissions officer would only really care if they saw your profile picture and it was something horrendous. My linguistics professor has a facebook, so I'm assuming everyone does at this point.)</p>
<p>Well btp, I'm assuming you're talking about the mix up of the possessive 'your' and contracted 'you are - you're' and maybe the use of ellipses and not a question mark when a question ,(I dunno, the syntax sure makes it look like one), is posed.</p>
<p>Wow, if all you have time to do is analyze sentences on a discussion forum, that's pretty sad. I type very fast and do not edit what I type. I'm lucky that sentence even made a coherent thought. </p>
<p>Back on topic, I have heard Ivy leagues have paid specialists who look up information on people especially if they find stuff that promote illegal behaviors or look very contradicting to what the applicant comes across. Is that a fact? I do not know. </p>
<p>My opinion: I'm not getting rid of my social utility because a university is going to look at it and base their decision to accept/reject me from that. Personally, there is nothing wrong with my facebook and I tend to have very academic discussions on my walls. That is who I am as a person.</p>
<p>Check your pictures, especially those that others took of you and in which you are tagged. Untag yourself if the picture shows you, or other people you are with, drinking, using drugs, or doing anything illegal or particularly stupid.
Look at the names of groups you are in. What would somebody who doesn't know you think about what they say about you?</p>
<p>what i have heard from a top20 school admissions officer is that a very small percentage of their applicants - often the seemingly amazing or seemingly ingenuine - are placed into the "investigate" category. Then they get googled, facebooked, resume-checked, etc etc. Putting it on "only friends" is best, but some people theorize that you just design your facebook to look really good and put the same activities and interests in your thing to help. But again, they really don't care for the vast, vast majority of their applicant</p>
<p>Personally, my friends and I joke around so much on facebook, it's not even funny. Honestly though, if the college was that paranoid in checking, I don't think I would really want to go.</p>
<p>I'm almost certain that as long as your profile is set to Only Friends or something along those lines, it's impossible for said admissions creeps to access it. Add to that the fact that minors can't be publicly listed, and I think we should be fine. (I'm still 17.)</p>
<p>They can't see it unless it's public, although some applicants (like me) DO have public pages. Hahah, I'm just not concerned about an admissions person learning about my love of Bob Dylan or seeing a hundred pictures of me at debate tournaments.</p>
<p>So...I just added Elihu Yale as my friend. The Yale admission website says that they want to connect with the students, ergo the facebook account they made under name "Elihu Yale". You can learn about it at Welcome</a> to Yale College, Office of Undergraduate Admissions </p>
<p>So. was it a wise decision or a stupid one? >_></p>