Facebook: Are Colleges Really Looking?
Recently, MoreThanGrades attended the New York State Association for Admission Counseling forum at Fordham University. Also in attendance were several colleges, a room full of admission counselors, and other professionals who are involved in the college admission process. It was the perfect time for us to ask the question many were pondering: Do colleges actually look at a student's facebook profile?
Before I give you their answers and the reason for their answers, I also undertook a twitter campaign to address the same question, posing it to all the colleges who follow us on twitter. In both cases, the answers were pretty much the same. No.
In the blog world, there was a posting recently by Kaplan about the use of Facebook in college admission. They concluded from their questioning that 80% of colleges use Facebook for college admission. But if we look at this number a little closer, the true use of Facebook becomes clear.
Most of the college we surveyed, including the colleges in attendance at the NYSACAC forum, overwhelmingly agreed that the use of Facebook in making a decision about admitting a student was pretty much zero. To substantiate their claim, they pointed out that the number of students who applied to their respective schools this year had increased dramatically, leaving little time to go hunting for information. Many of these same schools have dropped interviews for the same reason -time. With several thousand applications to read and decide upon, trolling Facebook for embarrassing photos or self-destructive postings was unrealistic. So what are colleges using Facebook for? Social interaction.
Many colleges have come to appreciate that students of today are not looking for information in the same way students of just a few years ago did. Often the college search starts on-line. To address this trend, many colleges have created Fanpages on Facebook so students can get the information they want in a way that is meaningful for the student. With Fanpages, colleges can not only post information about what is going on, they can get the personal interactions many student crave. As with any new technology, it is not perfect, but it does provide an additional way for students and colleges to connect other than college fairs and school visits.
What the future holds for colleges, students, and the admission process is unclear. As access to information becomes easier and faster, the use of social media may factor into the application process. But as of right now, that does not seem to be the case. Still....if you were promised a scholarship from a college, you might want to remove anything embarrassing from your profile -just in case.
Our next topic: Should all colleges eliminate the SAT/ACT exam in lieu of a school based exam that cannot be prepped for? Let us know what you think.
Mike, Co-Founder of MoreThanGrades.com
Labels: college admission, Facebook, social media
posted by Mike-Blog @ 9:03 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
It is reasonable that colleges do not often have time to examine every applicant's Facebook. Can the reason for the increasing number of applicants be the recession?
The next topic about exams is interesting. Some people prepare for SAT or ACT since they are still in elementary school or even more early; while they can ace on the tests, they may not actually understand the materials well. An exam for which one can not prepared may examine their real understanding (at least closer). However, for those who easily get nervous on tests, SAT and ACT's predictivity works better.
I strongly believe that parents should not monitor what their kids do on their Facebook for two main reasons. First, is when the parents made the decision to let their kids have a Facebook they should have realizes the complications that can come from having a Facebook. Second and most importantly, the parent are telling their kids they don't trust them and this may be the one freedom that kids have that their parents doesn't have control over. For those reasons I believe that parents should not monitor their kids Facebook. Colleges on the other hand is a different issue because colleges can see how mature the person is and if they should really allow this person into their school. I am perfectly fine with the college monitoring, but parents that is a bad idea and we can all kiss goodbye to Facebook!
Social media is related to advertisement to real people, via twitter and facebook, we are announcing our product, service, article to those people who don't know about them or searching for some new and unique.
I do not think it matters who looks at your facebook. If you do not want anyone knowing something about you then why would you put it out on the internet allowing anyone to see? You can also monitor what is posted on your wall. If a friend post something you do not like then you are allowed to delete it off. I do not see a problem with anyone looking on facebook to get an idea of how the person is. And of course parents have every right to monitor thier kids facebook! There are so many crazy people these days and so many kidnapping. It is better to be safe than to regret not taking the precautions later.
When it comes to the issue of Facebook, I laugh every time. I believe, like Cara, that anyone has the right to look at your Facebook. If you tell your parents that you do not want them snooping, it is obvious there is something you are trying to hide. If you are ignorant enough to post something you know you shouldn't have, then you have to face whatever comes at you. Colleges, I think, would be genius to look at Facebook pages because that is where true character is revealed. An interview is influencial and you are educated by mere conversation, but people are more likely to devulge information via technology then they are face to face. I mean, that's why you have cyber relationships. Not many people can say "I love you" to someone's face today because it is easier through message or status. Overall, Facebook has been literally open for everyone to rightfully see, and I thimk it needs to remain this way for parents and colleges even.
As for the ACT/SAT issue, I agree more with Kuei-Ti Lu. Today, we are prepared to take a test by figuring out which would be the easiest way to guess a question right instead of reflecting our knowledge by knowing the answer to each question. Not everyone is a "good test taker" either. Some are fabulous test takers and receive close to perfect scores when they do poorly in school. Yes, colleges need a standard for accepting students, but for the simple reasons I just listed, the ACT/SAT should not be a factor in college admission. Come up with something more applicable to what we have learned. Sure we can compute the square root of this and that, but where does that get us?
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