It’s true – many colleges do indeed research potential candidates online, including looking at their online profiles on social networking sites such as Friendster, Myspace and Facebook. Increasingly, colleges are coming clean about the fact that they are searching students’ online profiles for any extra information which will help them make a tough decision, and for students whose profiles contain some questionable content, the answer they get from these schools might not be what they’re looking for. In essence, schools are looking at the profiles for evidence of inappropriate behavior and a lack of responsibility – photos from parties, blog entries and even comments from friends are all fair game, and are looked at in addition to the student’s application as a whole.

The majority of college admissions officers will say that they only search for students’ online profiles if something in the application piques their interest. However, in the fall of 2007, a Massachusetts-Dartmouth study of 453 college admissions departments found that 26 percent of them are actively researching students through search engines such as Google, and 21 percent are checking out social networking profiles when reviewing applicants. So how can students use this information to their benefit? First, they should know that when it comes to college admissions, their academic reputation is important – but their social reputation is becoming just as important. For college admissions reps, students’ online profiles their first and usually only look at how a student presents himself or herself socially. This being the case, students should, especially around college admissions time, take a number of steps to protect themselves. Privacy settings should be changed so that only friends can view their profiles. Students should ensure that the content on their pages is free of things which could mar their reputations, and they should monitor friends’ comments and photos as well. This might seem like a lot of work for sites which are intended to be fun social networking havens, but in reality these changes are very easy and in the long run, they could mean the difference between an acceptance letter and an unknown future.

Tags: Learning Technologies, Online Education