<p>An admission counselor at a small midwestern CTCL LAC just friend-ed me on facebook today. I was pretty shocked that an admission counselor would ask a perspective student to be friends on facebook. I knew admission counselors looked or browsed perspective students profiles, but I never thought they would actually add them. I did have an interview with this admission counselor back in September and she was quite nice, but she was also a fairly recent alumni of the college (class of 2010). It is very easy to find me on facebook due to my non common last name and she already knew what I looked like.</p>
<p>This facebook of hers does not appear to be her real one, but one just for perspective students. She only has 100 friends on it, and her facebook link is posted on the schools website. I really do not know what to do. I do not have any bad photos or videos on my facebook; however, some of my statuses could be controversial from time to time. I am not afraid to speak my mind. I also always post about when I'm accepted to a college and when I receive scholarships. I'm not the only one, everyone does it. I really do not want to watch what I have to say every single day. My statuses aren't even that bad, I just wouldn't want an admission counselor creeping on my profile. I have not been accepted to this college yet, but I have applied Early Action. Although, they still haven't received my SAT scores when all my other colleges have, so my application is incomplete until they receive them. My profile is on private, so she would never be able to see my statuses if I don't accept her friend request. I have asked peers, teachers, and my father and they all agreed that I shouldn't accept it, but I should just leave it be. They think I shouldn't deny it or accept it. My teachers thought it was unprofessional and weird. I could accept her and just block her from every status I wouldn't want her to see, or I could just not accept or deny the friend request. If I just do not accept or deny, should I accept once I'm accepted or just never accept it? I don't want to get denied because I didn't accept her friend request. My initial reaction was to accept it, but I was going to delete some statuses/pics. Also, on facebook now you cannot tell if a person hits "not now" or doesn't do either of the two. It will still say pending. Facebook use to let you add them as a friend again when you denied them, but now it is pending even if you do. So, she will not know if I just denied her or did nothing.</p>
<p>Also, I have my whole family on facebook including my grandparents and parents. I have several adults and old high school teachers who no longer work at my school on it as well. I never block any body from my statuses. My facebook profile is a saint compared to most peers in my class. Other kids have pics of them drinking/smoking at parties and some girls have pics of them dressed up as strippers for Halloween. I don't drink or smoke and I do not hang out with that crowd. But anyways, what should I do? Thanks everyone!</p>
<p>“My teachers thought it was unprofessional and weird”…yup</p>
<p>" If I just do not accept or deny, should I accept once I’m accepted"…nope</p>
<p>" I don’t want to get denied because I didn’t accept her friend request"…and how would you know?</p>
<p>If you were my student, I would have you call up said office of admissions, talk directly to the Director of admissions and ask him the same questions you are asking us…</p>
<p>So inappropriate it is beyond further discussion…</p>
<p>I would not accept it, and I would consider sending the counselor a note that says, “Hi, I saw that you sent me a friend request. I wanted to let you know that I make it a practice to only “friend” people who I’ve known personally for a long time. This is not a reflection on you, but rather is simply a policy I have to manage FB requests. Thank you for thinking of me.”</p>
<ol>
<li> Remove all incriminating photos from your facebook page.<br></li>
<li> Delete all goofy clubs or groups you may be a member of.</li>
<li> Unfriend anybody who hangs out with the “wrong crowd”</li>
<li> Change your profile photo to something that makes you look studious and collegiate</li>
<li> Update your activities to include charitable work.</li>
<li> Add in hobbies that you are passionate about</li>
<li> Ask your friends not to post raunchy comments on your wall</li>
<li> Find an inspirational quote to post at the top of your page</li>
<li> Ask your Mom to look over your final page and see if there is anything she recommends</li>
<li> Accept the friends request.</li>
</ol>
<p>You’ve gotten good advise. I would ignore it. The only thing I might add is you might want to change your security settings to limit who can find you in a search and thus send you a friend request in the first place, (for instance only ‘friends of friends’), as well as review your security settings to make sure only friends can view your page, information, and pictures.</p>
<p>This thread is really scary. I have absolutely no idea of what it is about nor am I able to understand what anybody here is talking about. I graduated from college in the 1970s and am a medical doctor so I do not think of myself of as ignorant or uneducated but there are clearly things going on today that I must not have been keeping up with. What is an FB? What does it mean to be “friended”?</p>
<p>hard to believe anyone doesn’t know what FB is - even if you don’t know how to use it, it is in the media daily. I graduated in the 70’s also and have a FB account. My Mom graduated in the 40’s and kind of know what FB is!</p>
<p>As for the OP, sounds like you did the right thing. I would just ignore it. Seems very inappropriate to me! On the other hand, we constantly remind our kids not to have anything on FB that they wouldn’t want their sweet, little Grandma to see!</p>
<p>My mother graduated in the forties and has a facebook page to keep up with her friends who are still alive…clearly most of them aren’t driving much if anymore…</p>
<p>Lemaitre, I’m still a FB novice, but I’ll try to answer your questions to the best of my (limited) understanding.</p>
<p>FB stands for “Facebook”, the online social networking service. The people you “friend” are those who can see your Facebook home page, and vice-versa. Privacy settings determine how much you allow others to see, but friends can view one another’s “walls” - sites that contain not only the host’s postings, but also the comments/pictures/videos of “friends” of “friends.” </p>
<p>Although a great way to connect with both old and new friends (I mean this in the old-fashioned sense!), FB is not without its pitfalls. Concerns arise about who might gain access to FB sites - colleagues, employers, clients, college admissions officers, to name a few - who might get the “wrong” impression from some of the postings.</p>
<p>I’m friends with the person who interviewed me for UChicago on FB, but I don’t think the admissions office engineered that to snoop on me…</p>
<p>I think what the OP described sounds innocuous, but ultimately invasive. It is easy for a small liberal arts college to go overboard in its efforts to reach out to candidates (and students) and come off as too pushy, which is what happened here, but I don’t think it was done with the intention to spy on people; small schools really do try to create a sense of community/add a personal touch/[insert random platitude about individual attention here] when they deal with potential students, because that is often how they hope to get people to attend. The thing is, sometimes that personal touch may turn into an accidental grope.</p>