The number of college admission officials who check the social media profiles of applicants has declined since 2015, a new report indicates. https://www.collegeconfidential.com/articles/report-fewer-admission-officials-checking-applicants-social-media-profiles/
Interesting! Here’s what I think ( and some of which agrees with the article): 1) Kids and all of us hopefully have become more aware of what they post 2) “Finsta”: I think many, many kids have these at this point, so they have their clean/parentally-accessible Insta and then their Finsta (fake Instagram and other secondary profiles) for stuff they only want their true friends to see 3) Social media has exploded so finding people is harder with so many more accounts, and again see #2 4) It probably takes way, way longer to explore an applicant’s social media profile than it did when there was just Facebook and everyone used their real name.
Agreed. Lots of kids abandoned Facebook (if they were ever on it) for Snapchat and Instagram, which is nearly impossible to check and/or you don’t need to use your real name.
Some social media is easier to find than others. I am the only person on Earth with my combination of first and last name. Someone named Tom Smith probably has thousands of namesakes. Admissions officers would be far more likely to google my social media than the aforementioned Tom Smith.
My daughter shares a name with a famous model. At least the first five pages of any search is of the model. That said, she’s always been very careful with what she posts and has the most restrictive settings.
I think that as application numbers continue to rise, admission officers don’t have time for social media searches.
My D19 used to have a Tumblr with 30,000 followers, but it didn’t have her name attached and she didn’t share any images she created herself (just things she found that fit her aesthetic). She’s on Facebook but almost never posts anything, and she’s on Snapchat. I agree that kids have gotten both warier and wilier about their social-media presences, meaning it’s less useful for admissions officers than in the distant past of 2015. 
One of the colleges, following my son’s interview with them (prior to applications), showed up on “searched by” on my husband’s professional LinkedIn account. We were wondering if they were making sure we could afford the $71,000 price tag!!
“To make it into a top college or university today, learners need to demonstrate excellence both in and out of the classroom. To get a sense of the latter, college admissions workers frequently take to social media to see what they can glean about the personalities of their applicants. For applicants, this can be a source of concern, especially for those under 21 who might choose to imbibe. A recent survey by Kaplan Test Prep, however, finds that fewer and fewer college admissions workers are weighing social media profiles. The reason? They can’t find them.” …