In a world where people share what they had for lunch on Tuesday, what they wore on Friday, and where they are now, why does it come as a surprise that someone is looking at this information?
According to the annual survey conducted by Kaplan Test Prep Survey, 29 percent of college admissions officers say they have Googled applicants while 31 percent say they’ve visited an applicant’s Facebook or other social networking page.
While this “surprising” information had some people crying out “Big Brother,” what is more shocking is that in an age where we are all worried that the NSA is spying on us we forget how easy it is to “spy” on someone else.
Rarely is anything you post online private and people should take that into strong consideration when using the internet, particularly with social media sites.
And according to the New York Times, colleges don’t check applicants’ personal social media networking pages as a routine practice and if they do it is because they have been alerted to do so because of extreme hate speech.
The main thing people forget is that despite all its other distractions, the internet is a tool and, in the case of college admission officers, it is a tool they use to help weed out certain applicants.
But for students applying to colleges, this tool can also be used to their advantage. The New York Times and the Huffington Post both report of students do so. By simply “liking” the school on Facebook or following them on Twitter, students not only show they are interested but are also able to display their positive behavior or talents.
While some people may not agree with what some college admissions officers are doing, they are not to blame. They do not create the content—that is the students doing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/28/facebook-college-admissions_n_828487.html
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