College Admissions

If you don’t want a college admissions counselor to see something you posted on FB, take it down. Why take the chance?

Did you or your child Facebook friend their regional admissions counselors during the college admissions process? Did they send them a FB message or “poke” them? We hope not! We’ve previously posted about the impact of Facebook in the college admissions process and about social networking and college admissions. But today, we’d like to tell you about some statistics that amusingly depict just how Facebook is involved in the college admissions process. It should be noted that studies we’ve read and written about do not confirm this data. Most college admissions counselors still aren’t looking at Facebook profiles so we’re not so sure about the statistic quoted in a “Schools.com” infographic that 70% of colleges use FB profiles in the college admissions process.

Since we’re skeptical about that statistic, we can’t help but be a little skeptical about the other stats but we’ll let you know them anyway. According to the infographic, 62% of admissions counselors say that FB profiles actually helped students gain admission. Uh huh. We don’t buy that for a second. 80% of colleges use social media in the college recruitment process. That we believe. Colleges are increasingly turning to social media as a way to appeal to the masses. And an astounding 80% of college admissions counselors have received a FB or MySpace friend request. Hilarious.