MySpace in College Admission (for teens)

You've been working hard trying to get into college—researching schools, refining your essay, collecting glowing recommendations, studying on nights and weekends for the SATs or ACTs, maybe even preparing for a campus interview. Throughout all of this process, you’ve made a great impression as a serious, promising college student. Wait, though. Before you can relax on the couch to watch “American Idol,” there’s one more detail to take care of—your online blog.

Whether it’s through MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, LiveJournal, or Friendster, students are online—online sharing details with friends, online for everyone to see.

These sites help you keep in touch with friends and allow you meet new people. Many students spend hours each day updating their profiles, messaging their friends and clicking through photo albums. It’s harmless fun, right?

Now, how would you feel if your teachers saw your site? A college admission officer?

;Well, I would be a little angry because there are things in my profile that I don't want them to see,” said Aubrey Fait, a freshman at Saint-Mary-of-the Woods College (IN). “There is some information that I want to keep private between me and my friends, so I would prefer if my parents and college faculty not look at my Facebook profile.”

Other students don’t think what they do in their free time influences their school work, so it shouldn’t matter what information they have online. They may be right: You can be a great student, regardless what you do outside of school. When the embarrassing details of your social life are online for anyone to look up, though, you might want to re-consider what you post.

You might not like it, but you should know that adults—from your schools, families and even law enforcement—are looking at your pages.

Most colleges are not surfing the Web for your profile. However, when other people bring students’ blogging to their attention, schools do respond.

• At least one college applicant was denied admission in part because of his blog on LiveJournal. The admission dean said the student’s blog, which was brought to his attention, included seemingly hostile comments about certain college officials (Kornblum 2006).
• Swimmers at Louisiana State criticized coaches on Facebook and were kicked off the team (Kornblum and Marklein 2006).
• A high school freshman in Maryland was reportedly suspended because of online photos (Greenfield 2006).
• Police busted an underage drinking party at George Washington University after they found invitations online (Greenfield 2006).

Many middle and high schools have banned the use of these social networking Web sites on campus. Some private schools have even banned students from joining these sites altogether.

“I’ve been on MySpace and I can see that for kids it’s like their hangout place, their place to vent, their place to maintain instant contact—it’s hard for them to give it up,” said Judy Oberlander, a counselor at Ojai Valley School (CA). However, “since MySpace was taking a toll on study time and classroom engagement, in addition to the danger of the imprudent things being posted by students, we decided to outlaw MySpace use at school or any time.”