Please think seriously about your use of social networking sites. (news item)

Colleges & Universities A-Z Princeton University
1

<p>Applicants</a>' Facebook profiles may be viewed</p>

<p>While the Office of Admission says it does not systematically investigate each applicant’s Facebook profile, prospective students should not consider their online activity safe from scrutiny.</p>

<p>“If an inappropriate or offensive online post came to the attention of the admission office, we would examine it,” Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said in an e-mail. “As a regular part of the admissions process, we will consider any information that might cause us to doubt a student’s character, whether it is something posted online or another issue that comes to our attention.” . . . (continued)</p>

<hr>

<p>Applicants to any college should take heed of the risks here. Your online presence will say a great deal about you whether or not you think it should. While your friends may understand the real you, strangers who can access your information will judge you solely on what they read and the images they see. You'll have no opportunity to explain yourself to them.</p>

<p>Personally, I think the risk is greater for job applicants than for high school students applying for college. Still, doing a search of your own name to see what you can find is an excellent idea. I would also urge students to think deeply about who they are and how they want to relate to the world. Does your online persona reflect those values?</p>

2

<p>I need to get my name on here changed. -.-;</p>

3

<p>^?</p>

<p>i’m not afraid, because 1) i have set my privacy settings so that only friends can view my profile and 2) i have nothing on my FB page that i need to hide. really, you shouldn’t put any questionable pics on the internet. even if your privacy settings are near maximum, if your pictures are available even to friends there’s always the copy-and-paste method of showing pics to the world. i know people who’ve gotten suspended from athletics because of FB pics being shown to coaches (who weren’t the offending athletes’ FB friends and had no direct access to the pics, either). it’s a bit scary.</p>

4

<p>

</p>

<p>I think that your name is fine, Saugus. I don’t believe that any university will be attempting to deduce your first and last name let alone thinking any lower of you due to your perfectly sound comments.</p>

5

<p>uhoh, i better get rid of all the pictures of me and those handles off facebook! Seriously though, the people who put pictures like that on fb are generally imbeciles and for the most part, I doubt they’re applying to any schools like Princeton.</p>