In Yo Face(book)!!!

Looking at this picture, I'm not sure why exactly I loved Salisbury steak day in the cafeteria so much as a kid at old Waldo Elementary.

Yes, we all have that friend on Facebook whose status updates consist of nothing other than what they ate, what they’re going to to eat or “I’m hungry!”  (Really?  Because it’s lunchtime and that’s SO unusual.)  But oddly enough, with the recent changes to Facebook that makes profile information FAR more public than it was just a week ago, those folks might be onto something.  For users who don’t tighten the default settings, that means status updates, contact information, and even pictures can become part of the public domain.  And all just a quick Google away.

Most people could care less.  They’re not too worried about “My kitten Pookie sure loves his tuna. Lol!” finding its way into the permanent archives of the Internet.  But for teenagers, this could pose a unique problem.  It’s why I’ve asked all my students to keep their profile settings as private as can be.  There’s no reason a tech-savvy admissions officer really needs to see them whooping it up in Cabo over Spring Break as innocent as it might’ve been.  It’s all about context and sometimes, social networking sites like Facebook don’t provide much of it.

Just today, I came across a Research to Practice Brief issued by NACAC titled, Social Media: Considerations and Implications in College Admissions. Like you’d suspect from something called a Research to Practice Brief, it wasn’t exactly scintillating.  Much of it covered the obvious increase in use of social media within admissions offices both to share information and create connections with students and their families.  It also discussed how these offices could use the medium more effectively.  Nothing groundbreaking there.

However,  I did learn a couple things you might find interesting.  One, according to a 2008 study by a research firm called Barnes and Mattson, in 2008 “a substantial minority of schools reported that they research students via search engines (23%) and social networks (17%).” While not close to a majority, those are numbers that will only rapidly increase as more and more admissions officers grow comfortable with social networking themselves and, not to mention, more and more admissions offices do their application reviews online thus keeping their readers plugged in even more.  The brief goes on to say, “Most admissions offices are using search engines and social networking sites to verify information or research candidates for scholarships or entry into high-demand programs with limited spaces.”

From my days at Caltech, I certainly remember a situation where a student claimed to be a member of his country’s International Math Olympiad team AS WELL as his country’s International Biology Olympiad team.  Not impossible but highly unlikely.  A quick search on Google showed the student was likely misrepresenting himself and a quick email to his counselor verified it.  Needless to say, he got a rather thin envelope when we sent out our decisions.  (Moral of the Story: don’t lie on your apps!)

And lest this inspire any indignation, while schools are not allowed to use any information gathered to discriminate in any way that violates state or federal laws, it’s also not an invasion of privacy for admissions officers to access any information freely available on the Internet.  It will be interesting to see how guidelines are drawn up in the next few years to deal with what I expect will become much more of an issue.

In the meantime, the advice is obvious.  Kids, keep your profiles private!  And if you don’t, please just keep it to updates on how amazing the Salisbury steak was in the cafeteria.