College Admissions Officers Checking Applicants’ Online Profiles

We sure live in interesting times. Valleywag points us to a Chicago Tribune story that illustrates a very different use of social networking sites. College admissions officers are reportedly checking up on potential applicants via their Facebook and Myspace pages. Obviously this could cause some problems. Most people probably are not expecting a visit from someone so official. This could become a big challenge to all the partyers out there not up on their photo de-tagging skills. Although, on the bright side, this could be a potential boom for the reputation management industry.

Vallywag reports:

From a Kaplan survey, 10 percent of admissions officers surveyed at top-tier colleges admit to using social network profiles as an additional tool to evaluate applicants. Within that group, 38 percents say the kids’ online profiles negatively affected their chances of getting in. Some of the admissions officers interviewed say that they don’t go out of their way to peek into the students’ lives online but wouldn’t hesitate to Google more information.

Vallywag: “1 in 10 colleges checks applicants’ online profiles”