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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.
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.
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.
It's easy to do that. And while I'm sure lots of people post pictures of themselves doing stupid things, I would be more worried about my friends, enemies, girlfriends, ex's, bystanders, even family posting pictures or writing blog posts about me without my knowledge or consent. If a university finds a blog post that mentions my name and how kinky I am in bed especially after drinking and smoking and getting a tattoo written by my ex who wants to get back at me..what do you do?
If O2 is good, O3 must be 1.5 times better!
It's funny how most parents spend a considerable amount of time telling their kids "it doesn't matter what other people think" when it comes to things like peer pressure or social interaction, and then we go right back around and tell them it's important what other people think and your life is ruined if you make a fool out of yourself, whether on the street or online.
It's either one or the other, people. Either it doesn't matter what people think, and you can wear a toga when you're sweeping your lawn with a vacuum cleaner, or it matters what people think and you should be devastated that Kristen thinks you're a retard because you won't spend 150$ on a pair of jeans.
Or maybe, just maybe, parents should be telling their kids the truth: "it always matters what important people think, but determining importance is an exercise in good judgment. Since you're a teenager, your judgment sucks, so I'll decide for you who should be important to you."
I'm sure this wouldn't come over so well stated precisely like that, but I'm sure someone could come up with a better way of saying it.
Fair enough. People should be careful what they post (I know I am).
But in another sense, this issues is shining a light on a fundamental hypocrisy in our society. Were teens before the Internet angels? I think not. They vandalized, they drank, they did drugs, they pushed boundaries... just like the teens of today. But, their actions were easier to keep private. Now with SMS, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Google, etc., all these kinds of things are more consistently cataloged and disseminated. Even if you don't post it yourself, a friend (or enemy) might post it. And it will be indexed.
The hypocrisy comes in from the social elders who now judge these teens. They see a teen holding a can of beer, and deem them irresponsible. Yet, the vast majority of those judging did the exact same thing when they were a teen. Holding this next generation to a higher standard is hypocritical. How many of the great men and women in society did the same kinds of things? (According to statistics: most of them.) And what does it accomplish? Does it actually reduce the activitie(s), or just teach teens how to hide and lie?
I think it's time that society in general got a little more honest and realistic about what teens are up to. They drink, they have sex, they do all kinds of crazy things. I'm not saying that we give them free reign to do whatever they want without consequences. But I'm sick of holding them to unrealistic expectations, and teaching them habits that amount to "hide the truth" rather than "enjoy life in a balanced and responsible way."
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.
I would say that it betrays a serious lack of judgement.
Specifically, everyone knows that American beers that come in cans are shit. If the prospective student can't even discern that, how can you expect them to perform in rigorous courses?