Social Media and College Admissions

Hi, Scott Weingold here from College Made Simple, and today what I want to talk about is social media and how it could affect you for college admissions. A lot of things that people aren’t necessarily aware of, but I wanted to cover.

First up, there was a poll back in 2008 that said that already back then, 10%, they did a poll with over 500 selective colleges, the admission officers at these 500 colleges, over 10% said they were already checking applicants Facebook and My Space profiles. That was back in 2008, so imagine what it’s like now, and unfortunately it hurts more than it helps.

It hurt 38% of the time. It helped 25% of the time, so it’s actually hurting more than helping, and I think that people aren’t necessarily paying as close attention to what they’re putting up there, how it could be viewed as offensive by others. So you’ve got to assume the world is looking. A good rule of thumb I tell people is if you think your grandma would get offended by it, chances are it’s probably not good for the college admissions department.

You want to keep it clean, but you don’t want to keep it vanilla. You want to still appear as if you’re an interesting individual that would be interesting for the school. So you don’t want it to be completely vanilla, but you also don’t want to put up things that you don’t really want grandma to see either.

Now I don’t want to be lame, and I understand that Facebook is fun, and these social media sites are fun, so if you’re going to post things on your social media sites that you don’t necessarily want everyone to see, there are some ways around it.

For Facebook for instance, you could choose who can view photos, so if you’re going to put up photos that you don’t necessarily want everyone to see, you could choose who could view those. For Twitter you have to give your approval in order for someone to view your feed, and any kind of blog, if you write a blog, you can make it invite only to that. Once again, it’s not open for everyone.

Just definitely some things to keep in mind. The world’s obviously changed from the way it used to be. Pay attention to your social media profile and what goes out there and how it could affect you. If you want to still have it be a free for all and put your posts, then obviously go ahead. It’s up to you. All I’m saying is know that it can affect your chances of admissions at certain colleges when a college is trying to determine between you and another potential applicant.

So with that being said, if you’d like more information about social media and how it affects college admissions or any other topics on how to pay for college without going broke, definitely check us out online at www.CollegeMadeSimple.com, your family’s single source for college admissions and financial aid planning. Take care.