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10 Percent of Colleges Check Applicants' Social Profiles
theodp writes "Confirming paranoid high-schoolers' fears, a new Kaplan survey reveals that 10% of admissions officers from prestigious schools said they had peeked at sites like Facebook and MySpace to evaluate college-bound seniors. Of those using the profiles, 38% said it had a 'negative impact' on the applicant. 'Today's application is not just what you send ... but whatever they can Google about you,' said Kaplan's Jeff Olson. At Notre Dame, assistant provost for enrollment Dan Saracino said he and his staff sometimes come across candidates portraying themselves in a less-than-flattering light. 'It's typically inappropriate photos — like holding up a can of beer at a party,' Saracino said. On the other hand, using the Internet to vet someone's character seems overly intrusive to Northwestern's Christopher Watson. 'We consider Facebook and MySpace their personal space,' the dean of undergraduate admissions said. 'It would feel somewhat like an invasion of privacy.'"
We recently discussed similar practices from prospective employers.
If you can't figure that out, you shouldn't be getting into good schools.
Don't put up what you don't want other people to see - I hear all about the new generation growing up with the Internet and Facebook being a part of their life.
But what about simple commonsense rules (either derived on their own or imbibed from parents)?
Would you make a fool of yourself in the street (OK, some people would)?
This is a completely legitimate practice. After all, if we don't catch people holding up cans of beer at a party before they are admitted, why, they'll be doing it at colleges around the country next before you know it!
P.P.S. I'm doing Science and I'm still alive.
'It's typically inappropriate photos â" like holding up a can of beer at a party,' Saracino said
Riiiight. Because nobody who has had a picture taken holding a can of beer could possibly benefit from a higher education, or be a net positive for society.
Cripes. Makes me glad I'm decades past my college days.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
... "Because," Saracino continues, "Beer is not the sort of thing people drink at college."
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Their reliance on the fact that the profiles are "real"
Of those using the profiles, 38% said it had a 'negative impact' on the applicant. 'Today's application is not just what you send ... but whatever they can Google about you,'
Suppose a person has a grudge against you. They know you are applying for admission to a certain school. They know the school searches for myspace profiles or other profiles on social networking sites.
The person anonymizes themselves using proxies and creates a fake facebook or myspace profile. They use your name and general location: they include some nasty message/text that would be seen as highly negative.
The admissions office searches for your name. They find this page. They have no real way to verify whether or not you posted the page.
Their decision otherwise would be to admit you to their school, but they assume you posted this horrible page: it has your name, location, and a few other details that match their records, after all. Their assumption leads to a negative conclusion which prevents you from being admitted.
The person who posted the info is completely anonymous, and there is no means to locate the person.
What is your recourse? You will never actually be told the underlying reason for the rejection.
This is a reason universities should not be "searching" social network sites: until such time as the identity of the site's creator can be proven. They are creating a DoS opportunity for anonymous people to prevent other people from being admitted.
'We consider Facebook and MySpace their personal space,' the dean of undergraduate admissions said. 'It would feel somewhat like an invasion of privacy.'"
They're being overly sensitive. MySpace isn't private. Information put on the internet, publicly available without a password or other security, should be considered as public as anything on a community bulletin board.
That's why deeplinking is legal, to refer to the discussion from a few days ago.
Also, a simple MySpace check can probably tell the college a vast amount of detail about the student... and their level of stupidity. Responsibility and Judgment should be rewarded.
Hell, I have a surname I have to spell for people, and a quick Google leads to the conclusion that I have my own band, regularly do shows of my art, and hold degrees in Computer Science and Medicine. Suffice to say, most of that isn't accurate.
Sooner or later someone (university admissions, potentional employer, whatever) is going to get themselves badly sued over this, and frankly it serves them right for making snap judgments based on what amounts to unproven rumours.
The obvious next step is to make your profile a promotional tool. The "high achiever profile" may be the next big thing. You addressing the Junior Chamber of Commerce. You working on a political campaign. You being interviewed on TV.
Soon, this will be a routine part of getting into college, and there will be services to do this for you.
There was a recent post on the physics group blog Cosmic Variance about potential job applicants having webpages and getting Googled during the course of hiring for academic positions- postdocs and faculty. So it's not just the students, it's faculty as well.
There are lots of questions you can't have on a job application (sexual orientation, religion, etc.) but if an applicant volunteers that information, that is permitted. And the attitude seems to be that if information is on a webpage, it is "volunteered" to the world.
It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw.
You are alerted when you are tagged. You can remove your tag from other people's photos, and they will not be able to add it again.
I don't go to college for the "life experience." I go for the degree. If socialization was the goal, I'd do it without spending thousands of dollars a semester.