When students are looking to start applying to college, the question often arises: Do colleges look at Facebook? While there certainly is a "gray area" with regard to what colleges should or shouldn't be looking at, there are a few general rules that will protect you from getting yourself denied due to the content that your Facebook or MySpace profile contains.
But first, let's answer the question that got you on this page in the first place:
Do College Look at Facebook?
The short answer to that is, Yes. However, it would be unfair to say that ALL colleges look at Facebook or MySpace to gain an extra insight to an applicant. There are over 2000 colleges in the United States alone and many of them get over 25,000 applications each year! Yes, you read that right... 25,000! To say that a college that receives that many applications to review goes onto Facebook an looks at each student would be ridiculous.
However, each year more and more schools are taking a closer look at the students applying to their university as a measure of "quality control". So yes, it does happen at some schools. Social media outlets like Facebook provide an unfiltered, real life look at the potential student. If a college has access to that, WHY NOT use it?
Think about it: If you owned a business and had a potential employee that was underage drinking in half of their pictures on MySpace or Facebook, would you hire them? I didn't think so. The same goes for the colleges! They will think twice about admitting a student that is a risk of dropping out due to excessive partying etc. The reason for that is because it damages a college's reputation, so they are looking for as much of a "sure thing" as possible to help keep their ratings up. If not, they will lose thousands of tuition dollars from potential students who no longer want to apply to that school because of it's freshman dropout rate.
Ok, so do colleges look at Facebook? Yes, some of them do, but what can you do to protect yourself? For starters, take down those photos that you would consider questionable. A good rule of thumb is this: If you think it MIGHT be a little questionable, TAKE IT DOWN! It's better to be overly cautious rather than sorry because you got denied!
Also, there are certain privacy measures that you can take on Facebook that will allow only friends or certain people to view specific photos. While we recommend that you should just TAKE THEM DOWN altogether, if you must keep them then look into setting those pictures to "private".
Facebook and Myspace are just one aspect of your personal life that colleges could gain access to, and deny you based on the material found there. If you choose to remain on Facebook, please be careful of not only the photos you post, but also the things you say on your wall or other people's wall. Comments can seem innocent and fun, but colleges don't want to see anything inappropriate and WILL deny you based on that!
Do Colleges Look At Facebook? - You Might Be Surprised!
