<p>[Schools.com</a> Launches Infographic That Details How College Admissions Use Social Media for Recruitment - Yahoo! News](<a href=“http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20110415/bs_prweb/prweb5252944_1]Schools.com”>http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20110415/bs_prweb/prweb5252944_1)
Anyone see this article on how AdComms are officially tracking social networking by applicants? Any thoughts??</p>
<p>Hm. I haven’t been affected, as I don’t use social networks.</p>
<p>Call me paranoid, but I regularly Google my kids’ names to see what pops up in text and in images. In this day and age, I think everyone should do this.</p>
<p>Call me grateful that my kids’ names (and my own) are relatively common, such that if you google any of us, there are hundreds of same-name people to comb through.</p>
<p>Many people are named Pizza?? ;)</p>
<p>Well, in this day and age, about 30-50% of the population is literally live in the digital world. We will have our finger print and footprint in the nebulous computing cloud. At times, it would not be too hard to track you down, with some time and effort put into it. I have personally tracked down a friend’s contact information a few years ago, having lost touch for about 20 years.</p>
<p>On the other hand, schools do put a lot of information on the Facebook and Twitter. We have used them quite a bit in the application process. We have been certainly far “smarter” now than we were a year ago, having spent time on CC site :). </p>
<p>I would cheer for the progress made in the digital age and be vigilant in protecting myself just as we did back in 1986, when I first touched an IBM mainframe computer!</p>
<p>D2 just had a real life experience with this. Her first name can be gender neutral and when she had some pieces accepted for an undergrad student art exhibit, the museum director googled her name to figure out which gender should be used in the museum’s “about the artist” info. Apparently, one of the first things to appear was a facebook group - made not by D2 but one of her friends - nothing terrible, but somewhat embarrassing. She’s now trying very, very hard to convince her friend to make the group private. Lesson learned: warn your kid that they are followed by not just their own posts but also those of their friends.</p>
<p>Years ago I might have reacted differently. However, now “one-click-get-to-know-ya” has grown from a young subculture to a mudslide culture. I don’t personally think there’s anything wrong with researching the personalities with whom we choose to engage. If connecting is what such tools as MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, etc. were designed for, then the Universities are foolish not to use such means as investigating their candidates. </p>
<p>In ways this digital world has become questionably second to flesh and blood interaction. If one acts as though he or she does in the traditional public, there should be no cause for concern.</p>
<p>When I Google my daughter, it is almost all obits and that is a bit creepy.</p>
<p>When I googled myself a few weeks ago, I had all of three pictures come up. That’s in over 50 pages of images. Two of them were on the college website and the other was in a local newspaper site showing me working. My name is apparently common enough that I do not show up much…</p>
<p>I am a student who is pretty careful with social-networking. I’ve disabled the feature on Facebook that makes me available to search engines and made everything private to everyone except friends. The only thing I have found of myself with Google is whatever picture I currently use on Facebook, which is only available because I commented on a page that is public. Perhaps there’s a loophole that needs to be addressed.</p>
<p>I also share a last name with one of the top ten universities in the country, so searching for me usually brings up results about that. It’s too bad I’m not related. :P</p>
<p>How do you disable the feature on facebook that makes you available to search engines???</p>
<p>I believe it’s in your Privacy Settings under Public Search.</p>
<p>I regularly good DS and just found a very funny Youtube video that he made. Because it has profanity in the title and in the video, I have been begging him to take it down. His answer is: if a college or fraternity doesn’t find it funny, then that is not the place for me. ARRRGGGGHHHH (though I secretly think he is right).</p>
<p>^ What about the business he’d like to work for?</p>
<p>My son’s (and my) last name are not particularly common, at least spelled the way they are, but my son happens to have the same first and last name, with the last name spelled the same way, as a well-known economics professor at an Ivy League school. And a doctor in New Rochelle! So googling the name yields more than 17,000 results, and in the first 5 or 6 pages (I gave up after that) only one entry is my son’s. (It’s the front page of his facebook account, which I guess is public, but shows nothing he wouldn’t want me or anyone else to know!)</p>
<p>I’m actually quite grateful. Although it’s strange for me to see all those entries with that name, which I automatically react to as my son’s, describing him as an economics professor or a doctor – neither of which bears any resemblance to who he actually is!</p>
<p>If you google my name, on the other hand, there are only about 170 results. All are me. And I’ve had my name associated with enough trans-related events and publications over the years that it wouldn’t be difficult for anyone to figure out my history. Which doesn’t bother me; I may not go around with a “T” stamped on my forehead, but it isn’t a secret. Fortunately, though, I don’t believe there’s a single entry that discloses my former first name.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad- that was my argument to him as well, but I still don’t think that a funny video with the F word made by a 15 year old will keep patients away from him as an optometrist. He is willing to defend it now, and, tuthfully, once it is out there, it is hard to eliminate. This would be a different story if he was drinking or disrespecting others (those are non-negotiable in our family).</p>
<p>I think it’s a good idea to google your child’s name from time to time. My son’s name comes up a lot because he’s involved in a lot of activities. He is in an indie rock band and though he’s not on facebook, my space or any social network, the band has a facebook page. I found a post under some photos of the band. The person who posted meant it as a joke (she wrote “whore” in reference to one of the bandmembers) but I was upset. I contacted the leader of the group and asked him to either remove my son from the website or remove the comment. He was apologetic and had no problem removing the comment.</p>
<p>My son writes a blog and I have to step in and have him remove blogs at times. There’s nothing bad but often, I think his posts are too mindless and pointless and his humor doesn’t always translate well in words. I am trying to teach him the value of discernment.</p>
<p>Don’t use FaceBook. Don’t use twitter etc. </p>
<p>I guess I wasn’t affected?</p>
<p>you really make your son delete his blog posts? if i wrote a blog i don’t know how i’d feel about my mother reading it, much less controlling what i write… with all due respect, considering i know nothing about your situation and i’m not here to imply that i do, it may benefit both you and your son to do a little less policing.</p>