That party last weekend was the bomb and you ripped your brain out of its socket. Your Facebook photos show you with a five-gallon jug of tequila using empty Heineken bottles as sex toys. You wrote on your wall about how tore up you got and plan on doing it again this weekend and the one after.
Your friends write on your wall that your carnal escapades included fornicating with everything from a fire hydrant to the neighbor’s cat, to which you reply, “LOL, yeah, now I remember the cat.” Who cares, right? It’s all in good fun and between friends, right? Wrong.
According to a recent report from the National Association for College Admission Counseling, every wannabe college student should care, especially if his or her life depends on being accepted into a prestigious university, winning a lucrative scholarship, or being offered a plush financial aid package.
It seems colleges are increasingly playing Big Brother by scouring social networking sites. The report, based on a marketing survey of more than 450 universities, claims that approximately 26 percent admitted to snooping on potential and current students last year.
The study included 10 unidentified California colleges. None in the survey specified how often they used information from sites like MySpace and Facebook to reject scholarships or enrollment applicants.
College recruiters and financial aid officers are developing technical savvy in combing social websites and blogs to gauge the moral fiber of candidates.
Some of the findings from the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth survey used in the report show only 15 percent of the universities polled said they “did not use social media” last year. This was down from 39 percent who said they didn’t spy in 2007.
Although legal cases are extremely rare, ethics should be considered, including how the gleaned information is “systematically reviewed,” how student identities are verified, who in the institution is qualified to conduct the reviews and what standards colleges use to evaluate what they see.
The message that students need to use a little common sense with what they post seems pretty clear. As much fun as it is to communicate with friends — bragging about last weekend’s debauchery with Fido, while lubricated on José Cuervo and floating on magic mushrooms — it might just put that college degree out of reach.
The best advice is don’t post crap that you wouldn’t want your grandma to see.
Ouch… looks like our campus troll is in trouble….
Considering almost any job a college grad would apply for would check that person’s myspace or facebook, having colleges do the same seems only fitting. College is preparation for the real world, and expecting a college not to check up on something like this before handing over a scholarship or even an acceptance letter for that matter would be doing this generation a disservice.