Teenagers and young adults often spend hours on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, and the students at Boston College are no exception. Students often use these social networking tools to keep in contact with old friends, make new friends, share information, and to do a variety of other things. These online tools are meant for private communication between friends through sharing messages, photos, and videos.
Recently, however, these social sites have taken on a new function. Numerous admissions officers throughout the country have begun to use these sites as a means of investigating the personality and social behaviors of prospective students.
According to a Kaplan study of 500 top universities nationwide, 10 percent of all college admissions officers visit an applicant's social networking site. "The social networking frontier is a bit like the Wild West for colleges and universities," said Jeff Olson, executive director of research for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions. "Everyone is trying to figure out how to navigate it. The vast majority of schools we surveyed said they have no official policies or guidelines in place regarding visiting applicants' social networking Web sites, nor are they considering plans to develop them."
This practice does not necessarily have unfavorable results for applicants. According to the study, a quarter of those who reported viewing applicants' sites said that these viewings have generally had a positive impact on their evaluation. Unfortunately, however, 38 percent reported that applicants' social networking sites have generally had a negative impact on their admissions evaluation.
Law school admissions officers are especially likely to check an applicant's Facebook or MySpace page. The study found that 15 percent of law school admissions officers have personally visited applicants' social networking sites, and more than half said it negatively impacted those students' admissions chances.
2008 Woodie Awards
