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Facebook and College Admission
It's no secret that social media is changing the way we communicate. Some argue that social media sites depersonalize our relationships by emphasizing quantity (of "friends") over quality (of actual relationships). While Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and their ilk have opened up a new world of social interaction at the click of a mouse, they bring with them plenty of drawbacks. In much the same way that employers have admitted to using Facebook pages to vet potential employees, so too are college admissions officers beginning to use such social media sites to check up on student applicants.
Recent studies have revealed that 80% of higher learning institutions utilize social media as part of the recruitment process. It's an ideal arena, given the love affair between youth and the internet. Many college admissions officers admit to taking a peak at candidate's social media profiles. Quantifying the effect of such profiles on the admissions process could be difficult, but common sense dictates that a salacious or offensive Facebook page may not sit well with a college admissions officer, who is on the fence about a candidate.
If you think about it, applying to college or graduate school is not unlike creating a profile on a social media site; both processes involve the packaging and marketing of the self to a wider audience. There might not be a problem if those two audiences didn't intersect. Hopeful candidates should simply be more mindful that they do. BostInnovation
Labels: facebook and college admission
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