"Too Much Information?"

Parents Forum
1

<p><a href="http://www.theacorn.com/news/2007/0809/Schools/068.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.theacorn.com/news/2007/0809/Schools/068.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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If an application raises some question or concern, someone will investigate. A student who claims to have won an award or done community service for an organization that doesn't sound familiar may very well be Googled. </p>

<p>This is tricky territory, raising freedom of speech as well as privacy issues. If you express an opinion that is offensive to admissions officers or contradicts the philosophy of the school, are you risking a rejection, and is that legitimate? </p>

<p>At a conference last year, admissions officers discussed how they would handle a student who expressed clearly racist opinions in an application. If the student has discussed his views in an application essay, then he obviously wants admission officers to know them, but what if they happen to come upon his writing on a MySpace page? You could argue that posting those views for the world to read means the student didn't want to keep them private, but I wonder about potential lawsuits from students who believe they were rejected based on information that was not part of their application. </p>

<p>...</p>

<p>If a male student writes derogatory comments about women, how do admissions officers know if he could be a danger to female students or if he's just exhibiting teenage male bravado to impress his friends? Is poor judgment a reason to deny someone admission to college? If a student blogs about getting high all the time, what should admissions officers do?

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<p>So yes, obviously drinking pictures aren't something you'd want to put on your Myspace, but what about yes, racist views? Homophobic views? Even religious or political views?</p>

<p>I mean, it may well make a very big difference if an admissions officer is an ultra conservative Catholic, and you're on the other end of the political spectrum and believe in, I don't know, Scientology, which he thinks is absolute BS. Is it fair for you if you didn't go anywhere near these on your application, but it says it right up there on your Facebook page and he happens to chance upon it?</p>

2

<p>ah yes. But a very simple solution to this dilemma, isn't there?</p>

3

<p>I don't think it is in any way illegal for schools to seek info about students in addition to what's written on the application (they often call school counselors to verify or clarify various issues). Information that is out on a public website is out for anyone to use...</p>

4

<p>If the subscriber's settings are private, doesn't that mean that non-"friends" don't have access to the subsciber's information? So I've been told, anyway (but then, I'm a trusting sort). So doesn't that therefore mean that MySpace/Facebook info is shielded from adcoms and interviewers unless the student wants that info accessible to all? In which case, if a kid is dumb enough to post offensive material or compromising photos for all to see, he/she is pretty much asking for negative consequences.</p>

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<p>Nope, frazzled1, you're totally right.</p>

<p>Outsiders can only see information about you if you put it out there. Hence the usefulness of privacy settings for all kinds of accounts.</p>

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<p>I really don't understand the compulsion on the part of people these days to expose all of their personal information to the world yet that's what they're doing when they use these services. The privacy settings of some of the services might help hide some of the info from some but the info's still out there and there could always be a flaw in the security. Once the info's out there you don't really have any direct control over it.</p>

<p>If you have any concern at all about others accessing the info then don't make it available. If you do make info available, stand behind it and don't be embarrassed by it. You should feel comfortable having your mother and grandmother read the info. If not, then you probably put too much out there.</p>

7

<p>Interesting - about the time I posted warnings about what one posts on social networking sites and the false sense of security some people have with the security settings, this article came out regarding facebook -</p>

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We just received a tip that the source code for the Facebook main index page has been leaked and published on a blog called Facebook Secrets. There are at least two possible ways that the source code got out - the first is that a Facebook developer has sent it out, or the more likely option that a security hole or other method has been used on either one of the Facebook servers or in their source code repository to reveal the code...

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<p><a href="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/11/facebook-source-code-leaked/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/11/facebook-source-code-leaked/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Again - don't post anything on the internet that could be considered compromising - either now or in the future.</p>