Social Media Posts Make a Difference

When most parents think about preparing their teenagers for college, they think academics. And, of course, academics are important. But as those familiar with Toward College Success: Is Your Teenager Ready, Willing, and Able? know, there are many non-academic life skills that those teenagers need in order to be successful in their college setting. Those teenagers need to peaceably handle conflicts; effectively manage time, money, and priorities; and skillfully maneuver the college bureaucracy. There is another area they need to approach with maturity and common sense: their social media postings.

A Dec. 20 Education Week article warns that university admissions offices are turning to an applicant’s social media pages—Facebook in particular—to help in the decision-making process. According to Kaplan Test Prep, a test preparation division of Kaplan Inc., an organization that “helps individuals achieve their educational and career goals,” the number of admissions offices using Facebook and other social media has “quadrupled in the last year.”

The article quotes counselors from a few high schools that say they have tried to warn students that what they put on their Facebook pages can come back to haunt them—particularly if a picture shows a teenager engaging in underage drinking or refers to sexual exploits. A counselor at one high school had his students Google themselves. “The students, in grades 9-12, were surprised at the ‘page after page of content’ that came up. One girl was astonished when she found a picture of herself she’d never seen before; she couldn’t even remember where or when it was taken.”

The counselor then told his students that if a college pulls up an inappropriate picture of an applicant on Facebook, that college is likely to put the student’s application in the reject pile.

The article goes on to explain that most colleges do not have guidelines in place in how social media should factor into the admitting process. But colleges are frequently searching Facebook and other sites when an application is “red flagged,” for reasons ranging from an anonymous tip to a concern of a parent.

This subject is worth bringing up with your teenager. Maybe have your teenager try the “Google yourself” test to see what happens. Are you Facebook friends with your teenager? If so, what are you finding on his or her page? And what do you do if you find images or text that you believe would fall into that “red flag” category?

Read the whole article: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/12/08/14collegeadmit.h31.html?tkn=NNNFHFUFKe3nAlfzZYlxmmT25SvnEfbLQ185&cmp=ENL-DD-NEWS1