<p>For a while now, I've heard that many colleges tap into Facebook to check out your profile. Is this true? And if so, how in the world do they accomplish this; wouldn't this be a violation of Facebook privacy?</p>
<p>No, they don’t do this. Can a college track down and look at 18,000 facebook pages? No. I was a recruited athlete at an ivy league school and I know for a fact they didn’t see my facebook page (because I probably wouldnt have gotten in if they did…)</p>
<p>From what I have heard, they are not allowed to look at Facebook pages. It violates some kind of privacy policy. However, making sure you don’t have anything questionable on your facebook is still a good practice to keep because your future employers sure will look there.</p>
<p>What is more likely to happen is that you do something on Facebook, one of your “friends” sees it, decides to be a dick and tells someone at your school, you get in trouble, and that disciplinary action gets reported to the college on a report. However, if you don’t get caught you don’t get caught, and I wouldn’t worry about just letting go and having fun once in a while even if the pictures do get posted on Facebook.</p>
<p>Echoing what others have said, I REALLY doubt colleges take the time to check ~20-30k Facebook pages. But, I wouldn’t put it beyond them. To be sure that you’re good, I would put stronger privacy settings on your page until the application season is over. I, for one, didn’t let ANYONE see any tagged photos.</p>
<p>Here’s an appropriate article in today’s NYTimes about this very topic:
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<p>Um, even if they do, just put your privacy settings up higher and dont add people you dont know</p>
<p>^^^That’s an article about how kids use aliases to hide from admissions checkers.</p>
<p>“Occasionally, through their encounters with college admission agents, things are known about them that they could only be found on their Facebook pages.”</p>
<p>Isn’t there also a search by email address you can do? In which case, changing your name wouldn’t be enough…</p>
<p>Of course they don’t have time to check that many pages. Nonetheless, don’t be an idiot. My boyfriend’s brother and several of his friends were fired from a summer job they’d held (and done well in) for years before for complaining about the job (well, they loved the actual job, but there were certain parts that irritated them) on each other’s walls. A bitter coworker told their boss, and viola–they were all jobless. </p>
<p>Just don’t be stupid. ie, untag yourself from that picture where you’re vandalizing a car while holding a Bud Light in the air. I mean, honestly.</p>
<p>I’m glad admissions committees aren’t FB creepers.</p>
<p>No. A Carnegie Mellon admissions rep FOLLOWS me on Twitter.
If it actually mattered, I definitely would not have a place there.</p>