MySpace in College Admission (for teens) (continued)

It’s happening all across the country: Students in middle school, high school and college are being suspended and expelled for their online indiscretions. Even if you disagree with these policies, they can affect you. And as much of a cliche as it is, your school officials are just trying to protect you.

With the MySpace bans, students need to be careful of what they post. Some zero-tolerance polices make it fair game to punish someone who is in a photo even holding what appearns to be alcoholic drink. Explaining this type of suspension to a college doesn’t really make a good bullet-point for your resume.

Even if your school doesn’t have these rules, your postings could affect your college admission. Most colleges do not look up students on these sites, but when other people draw attention to these possibly offensive blogs, then schools often take action.

“We have just started letting students know that employers, college admission personnel, and others may be checking their postings...Our students seemed very surprised by this,” said Julie Davis, Thomas Worthington High School (OH).

“In terms of college admission, I talk with the students about the importance of projecting a professional impression through voice mail messages, e-mail account titles and MySpace postings. I tell them a story once told to me by an admission counselor who said a student gave her e-mail address as partygirl@hotmail.com. She didn't get accepted to that college,” said Margi Wieber, college counselor, Providence Academy (MN).

Some college admission officers make themselves available for students on these sites as a convenient forum for Q & A.

“I have accounts on Friendster, Facebook, LiveJournal, Xanga, and MySpace. I do interact with a variety of students via these communities, however, it's our strict policy that the Internet should only help applicants, not hurt them...I, personally, don't think it's fair for college officials to take advantage of [these online interactions]—the one exception being a student's safety,” noted Ben Jones, communications manager for the MIT Office of Admissions.

“I don't ‘research’ applicants online using their pages in these communities—although other schools do, from what I read in the news. My interactions with applicants and current MIT students are initiated by them—not by me.”

Jeannine Lalonde, assistant dean of admission at the University of Virginia, also talks to students online who contact her. “After seeing current UVA students answer questions on MySpace, I decided to step in and offer some advice to the high school students who were posting. I knew it would open the door, but I also knew that seeing an admission officer on MySpace might:

1. Make a few kids stop and think before posting info about questionable behavior on their sites; and
2. Make some students realize that admission officers aren’t as scary as they might have thought.”

Sometimes students include Web-based communications such as blogs in their college application. Daniel Creasy, from Johns Hopkins University (MD), explains his experiences with student blogs as part of the application: “Many times, the work the students have done adds substance to their file and truly helps, but there have been occasions where this information raises questions and concerns.”