<p>Right, just clean your page and keep it clean. I think it’s logical to think they may check performers online, since performers do describe their accomplishments. The rest of the gobbledygook, just clean it up. You don’t need someone to promise you they won’t look anybody up. Have- and use- common sense.</p>
<p>Stanford gets more apps than Harvard? Learn something new every day!</p>
<p>^^^^
Interesting approach by Skidmore Admissions if that is what actually happened. But I would imagine that there is little correlation between what a college student would find objectionable and what an adcom would find objectionable.</p>
<p>The final word IMO on all of this is that none of us know when a given admissions officer or anyone, for that matter, will google you or anyone. Do I believe that every single admissions office google searches every single applicant? Nope. Every single applicant on the accept list even? Nope. But, google yourself and see what the goods are on you. It can be important if someone does so do a search.</p>
<p>I think applicants should just assume that admissions workers might google them. It just takes a few seconds. I’m always amazed–shocked, really-- how much I can find out when I’m motivated to look up someone (kid’s new teacher, roommate, date, etc.) </p>
<p>I work at a university in the IT department. One thing I have to do in my job is merge duplicate records. </p>
<p>Sometimes we’ll have two records for what appear to be the same person, with a slight difference in how the name is spelled. I frequently look up the prospective student on Google and Facebook to help determine which spelling is more likely the correct one. However, I have nothing to do with admissions. </p>
<p>And I REALLY dislike trying to decide if slight variations in first name, for someone with the same date of birth, address, and high school/graduation year, is the same person OR if they are a twin. We had a set of twins with the same first & last name, and middle names different by one letter. WHY would any parent do that?</p>
<p>@lookingforward</p>
<p>I agree with your advice here - for Stanford as well.</p>
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<p>I would be very careful inferring anything from the Stanford article. It was not written by someone from the admissions office (verified via a 30-second Google search); the paragraph that you extracted is not a direct quote from someone from the admissions office; and it uses the word “assume”. Without a statement of policy or process from a person of authority within the admissions office (as with the Tufts link) we can’t really conclude anything about Stanford’s process.</p>
<p>If for some reason Stanford (or any other school) thought it was important to add any sort of check to their process they could just hire more temporary help (like they do for reading the apps).</p>
<p>The really creepy part is that in the specific case of Stanford (which invented the technology behind Google’s search engine and maintains a good relationship with Google), one could imagine all sorts of automated searches based on Google/Stanford technology that could increase the amount of information available to the admissions team. </p>
<p>In fact, in the specific case of Stanford, the application itself may be largely irrelevant other than as a means to construct keys for searching the Internet to build a true profile of the candidate and their parents. :-)</p>
<p>But I know some of this, ime/another school, and there is very little time left, during those 8 weeks. It’s very much a heads-down time, not the same as what we might do during our own idle moments. And frankly, FB is still generally unreliable for the info needed, for competitive admissions. Who cares that a kid was at the beach and calls friends betch? </p>
<p>I think we’re right to look over our shoulders- but for now the solution for wise kids with good judgment, is to leave no trail of bread crumbs. </p>
<p>My son has his FB sufficiently private that when I searched for him, and also him along with specific people mentioned by name, nothing comes up. He’s an athlete but has a common name, so oddly enough the first hit on images is a picture of him scoring a goal, but none of the hundreds of others are him. A name search brings up a few athletic things and nothing else.</p>
<p>The way I look at it, if a college would reject you for ideological grounds, would you be happy there? He doesn’t have anything too ideological on his FB page, and he does use a bunch of pseudonyms on the internet (because of my problems with someone in my past). Pseudonyms are the way to go unless you are doing something official or financial, which better be secure.</p>
<p>I don’t think the issue is do they or don’t they Google applicants - I think they do in at least some circumstances, and in a circumstance like my son where he is a recruited athlete, it would be more of a concern to make sure his web presence is “clean”.</p>
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<p>This is an important point. Lee Coffin at Tufts pretty much says the same thing…</p>
<p>But Lee does not say anything about “Googleing” applicants (which is faster and can be more revealing), so we cannot make any assumptions on that subject- even for Tufts.</p>
<p>I told my kids that the Internet is in the public domain. Don’t do anything there that you wouldn’t want the general public to see. Privacy settings don’t matter, because you probably signed away your rights to any information you posted, so you really have no control over it.</p>
<p>I then had them Google themselves (out of my view) and told them that they should do this on a periodic basis to be aware of what their “Internet public image” was.</p>
<p>In some ways, the question about whether or not colleges do it is irrelevant, because it is a common practice in business. The conversation with my kids was in the context of applying for jobs - long before college. </p>
<p>I guess I’m a bit of a contrarian here, but I’d like to suggest another reason colleges might google an applicant–aside from confirming information, or idle curiosity. It’s my observation that many, and probably most, successful applicants to top colleges have a pretty robust internet presence. You google them, and you will find articles about them, their names will appear on awards lists, there will be stuff from their school, etc. Younger admission officers might expect to see this, and they might look for it. This just may be a way younger people get a “picture” of what another person is like. I know my kids often google people to find out more about them, and it’s not just a matter of looking at the person’s Facebook page.</p>
<p>As for what to do about this for the aspiring applicant, my suggestion is the same one I always make: if you do some activity, look for ways to get some recognition for doing it well. For example, if you write poetry, enter poetry competitions. This is not exactly packaging–but it is looking for opportunities to sell yourself a bit.</p>
<p>In grad school, though, yes. I was googled by most of the graduate programs that I applied to (because I have am Academia.edu account, as well as Gmail which lets you know when people search for your name, and where they’re from). I highly doubt this is the case for undergrads, though. It didn’t hurt – I got in to my first choice!!</p>
<p>Stanford gives an applicant 15 minutes of their time? That sounds more fair than what I heard. I thought most schools give an average application only 8 minutes.</p>
<p>An average of 8 minutes probably includes all those applications which get about 30 seconds’ worth of attention.</p>
<p>Like everyone said, universities probably google search at least some applicants, depending on the applicant’s circumstances. For example, somebody I know who was accepted at Yale wrote in her college app that she acted as the female lead in three famous movies in India (she actually did). I would assume Yale googled her to see if she is telling the truth, and also perhaps to see how the films did and how her performance was received. So yeah, depending on circumstances, I would assume universities do google some applicants. </p>
<p>If I were an admissions reader, I wouldn’t Google the Indian actress to check up on her truthfulness; I’d Google that because it’s cool.</p>
<p>Like Facebook, Google isn’t that revealing in my opinion.</p>
<p>When I google myself, I can only verify 2 things on my common application, both awards, no ECs. I think colleges understand that A LOT of things aren’t figured out by googling. Of course, there are some things like national championships and top player of sport in the state, but people typically don’t lie about those things. People lie about small awards or playing an SYC sport or being in so and so club or doing a service project. Even if these things are on the internet, just because they’re not doesn’t mean they’re not true. I did a service project in my community but my name was never put on any of the PR stuff because I didn’t want my name being publicly circulated. Therefore there’s no way to google whether I was actually involved in the project or not. My friend has done debate for 4 years and none of her awards, all district and regional competitions, are posted online. Another one of my regional awards given out by an organization was not posted online. My acceptance into and attendance of certain selective summer programs were not posted online either. </p>
<p>I’m reading this thread and getting the attitude that people think a lot of things are google-able. That’s not even close to true, especially for high school students in big towns. I believe that adcoms understand this. Even if you were to google something suspicious, the absence of it doesn’t mean that the person didn’t do the activity. Adcoms know this, so why would they waste their time unless it was something clearly online, like presidential scholar nomination? I think, at best, a school has a strong relationship with other programs. So if a college is suspicious that a 1700 SAT kid said he went to TASP, they probably have someone they can quickly phone up and ask.</p>
<p>Of course adcoms know that lots of activities and awards aren’t online. Sweet Valley High doesn’t routinely post the list of who wins the debate contest. I agree completely with Hunt - if they are googling, it’s because it’s something interesting that has caught someone’s eye - like the bagpipe competition, or the Indian actress.</p>
<p>Godspeed to anyone who tries to google me. You’re going to get a lot of Irish pubs. </p>
<p>I’m not the only person with my name in my graduate program. Was not the only person with my name in my high school. Yes, you could probably google my achievements and find me specifically but just google-ing to google, good luck! </p>
<p>Actually, a lot of Sweet Valley High stuff is online. A lot of high school newspapers are online, and lots of student news in local papers is online as well.</p>