AOs appear to be increasing their checks of applicants’ social media pages, a new report indicates. https://insights.collegeconfidential.com/admission-officers-social-media
I am going to ask this as a parent who has a child with a super common name but how do they even find them? Also don’t students engage the privacy setting? I know my D20 has hers locked down, you have to request to follow her.
Every time we have a post about this survey, it’s pointed out that it isn’t comprehensive. Not what sorts of colleges responded. Nor do we know what more or less checking means. Was it two cases, last year, out of 30k apps? And now it’s up to 4? That’s minuscule and nothing to fear. But the headline’s scary, eh?
Some might check to find evidence of what sounds like a remarkable EC. Or something else that, surprisingly, the GC didnt confirm. But who has the time to stop and check? Much less, en masse? Most social media is trite.
@MBNC1755 I wouldn’t lose one minute of sleep over this.
I agree this is not something to worry about…just yet. However, it won’t be too long before intelligent bots will be deployed to look for inconsistencies in applications, and even uncover secrets. Today’s youth is much less sensitive to privacy and a lot of information about them is online.
It’s not very useful as many students (specially ones with consultants, web designers, counselors or savvy parents) keep their private accounts locked and have second show accounts to impress college, often heavily edited and inflated by parents, counselors or consultants. Colleges would never know the real person.
Genuinely bright and humble kids don’t play these games.
When my kids were in high school, NYC private school seniors had a tradition of changing their names on Facebook, usually to some ridiculous pun.
I’m not sure who these AOs are checking, but the rude stuff is usually anonymous, strangely named, or locked.
It would be much easier and effective to do a search by the student’s name and HS. HSs post all kinds of information about students. Would be very easy to fact check in school ECs and awards.
D19 was an athlete, and those guys/girls DO get checked, pretty much across the board. I know some coaches personally, both in and out of his sport. They all say they have stopped recruiting numerous kids based on social media. Knowing this, he was always paranoid about anything he ever posted.
I’m guessing like @PetraMC alluded to there was another account I didn’t know about. He was cagey about that. But I figured if I couldn’t find it then coaches couldn’t either.
But for all my kids I just periodically remind them that if you would be embarassed if your grandma read it, don’t post it. NOTHING is private anymore.
Not too long ago a student made a post asking what a college would do if someone impersonated them and made some terrible posts on social media. I responded that they should contact the site and inform them of such but they will mostly check IP addresses etc. I also informed them that I’m not saying that they did but if they may have posted something on social media that was inappropriate that they should remove it, and or apologize but someone may have already taken a screen shot. It appeared that this kid was really scared that something would surface. They actually took down the post shortly afterwards. It was the only post that they ever made.
All the kids at our HS also change their name to one of those puns. My fave : ( slightly changed for anonymity) Cari-Ann M. Wayne to Carryann my Wayneword Son.
Also. FYI. In California it’s illegal for private as well as public schools to take any negative action against a student or prospective student based on what they’ve said. Best not cyber creep.
You’d be surprised how many people don’t, students and non-students.
One would likely never know why they weren’t accepted. It’s not like the college will say it rejected you because of your social media.
IMO, anything you post online is fair game. It’s public info at that point.
"One would likely never know why they weren’t accepted. It’s not like the college will say it rejected you because of your social media.
IMO, anything you post online is fair game. It’s public info at that point."
@doschicos - I agree…! denial as I like to call it does not come with a reason attached. I think many would probably be surprised at how many “qualified” applicants are denied admission because of this. I have no statistics but would not be surprised. Also, parents do not always know or pay attention to what their little genius angels are up to. I know first hand that just because a child may seem to be the perfect angel at home and in school does not mean that they cease to be a sneaky teenager. That’s right…smart kids…yes, perfect kids…No. Real shocker huh? 
For a few schools where my D applied for premier scholarships, admin requested to follow each semi-finalist on Facebook. We quickly reviewed the page to make sure there was nothing to worry about, but my D has always been very careful about what she posts on social media. Her page is very uniquely her, but very appropriate.
how can they judge you if they’re not 100% certain the account is yours?
I heard that they have ways to look at even accounts that have been set to private mode. Does anyone know if this is true??
@kukido004 - I don’t know but you should make sure that all of your contacts are people that you know personally and in real life. At my place of employment we do background checks for prospective employees and we just send a friend request or request to follow and people just accept it with no reservations. I NEVER EVER accept requests from people I don’t know in real life.
@Sarrip I definitely agree. At my school there have been rumors of the principal stalking social media accounts, and I found that kind of creepy (like, I don’t need that level of closeness tyvm) so I’ve been playing it safe. Anyways, I guess what I mean to say is that I think I’ll be okay 