Conventional wisdom is that everyone from hiring managers to college acceptance boards will review an applicant’s social media footprint.
We’ve heard the stories about college athletes losing scholarships due to social media postings, and there’s no shortage of cautionary tales of entertainers, business leaders and politicians burned by ill-advised posts.
According to a recent Kaplan Test Prep's annual survey of college admissions officers, 31 percent said they've logged onto Facebook to view profiles of applicants. Of those, 46 percent found something they felt negatively impacted the application.
We at The Walker School work to help our students navigate all aspects of life online. Given all that could be riding on an online reputation, we recommend they take the time to step back and thoroughly review what their social media profiles say about them.
Our top three tips are:
•Use Common Sense
•Take advantage of Privacy Settings, and
• Post Positive.
Common Sense. First and foremost, if there is anything on any of your social media platforms that you wouldn't want your grandmother, a human resources manager or a college admissions officer to see, remove it. Think it can only be seen only by your friends or on a limited network? Think again. Don't take that chance.
Privacy Settings. Use privacy settings to your advantage.
• As a rule, don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know.
• Set Facebook so that only friends of friends may contact you. Make your page private so that it doesn’t show up if someone searches your name. For example, Facebook privacy settings now include the question “Do you want other search engines to link to your timeline?”
• Take advantage of the Facebook “View As” feature that allows users to view your profile as others see it (people to whom you are not connected). You may also set your privacy settings to limit who can see past posts.
• Set your privacy settings to require your permission before any posts you are tagged in show up on your feed. This won’t prevent a potentially embarrassing photo from being shared, but it will prevent it from going out to your network with your name attached.
• Set Instagram so that only people in your approved network can see your photos, and make your Twitter feed private.
•Make it a policy to never post when you may not be thinking straight – such as when you are tired, stressed, or angry at your parents.
Post Positive. For teens applying to colleges — or searching for a job — take the time to utilize social media to show your best self.
• Post about your goals, aspirations, volunteer efforts, extracurricular activities. Build a digital portfolio that highlights your creative and academic talents.
• Avoid trashing anything or anyone, but especially your school, teachers, employers or authority figures.
• Don’t curse or post photos of yourself doing anything that may be construed as illegal, immoral or just in poor judgment.
• Use hashtags to your benefit. Find people or companies that share your interests and passions!
• Be sure your postings are not fake or contrived.
• Avoid insults, whining or trash talking — even in jest. Tone is hard to translate through text.
Social media is all about interaction. It’s not a one-way street. Connect with the colleges or businesses in which you are most interested. Follow their feeds, comment on their posts, interact with them in the digital realm.
So if you’re a teen or parent and realize you need to clean up your social media footprint, where do you start?
1. Begin by Googling yourself. You might be surprised at what comes up. Those links that come back highest in your search results should be your top priority.
2. There are companies dedicated to helping you clean up your digital trail. Clear (www.heyclear.com) is one that uses algorithms to search all your social networks and recommends what to remove.
3. In most cases, a little time spent reviewing what your social network reveals about you, deleting those ill-advised posts, and using privacy settings to your advantage will be all you need to showcase your best digital self.
Isabelle Jordan, a rising senior at The Walker School, says: “I know colleges will investigate my social profiles and I am conscious of it when I comment or post a photo. But just as I’ve seen how a school is much more than its Facebook page, I hope the admission officers know I am much more than my Twitter feed.”
Jordan has visited six college campuses over the past few months. She has learned that sometimes what she sees online isn’t the whole story. She hopes that potential colleges feel the same about her.
About the Author
