Do Colleges look at search history? High school or middle school history?

Do colleges look at your search history. If so, do they only look at your high school search history, or do they also view your middle school search history? Do they view your middle school search history? And do they only view search history on a google account issued to you by your school, or also history on your personal google account?

Nope. Colleges have no sound legal way of accessing your search history, nor would they go out of their way to look at it. Admissions are based on grades, accomplishments, that sort of thing–search history has nothing to do with college admissions.

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I heard admissions are using cookies to see what you’ve searched up and what websites you’ve been to. I know some colleges look at social media, but do they look at your browsing history using cookies? Also, do they view what you’ve done with your school issued google account or also what you’ve done with your personal google account.? Thanks

Colleges could certainly be tracking what you click on their web sites, or whether you view images in emails that they send to you. If you go to a college’s web site by clicking on an ad on some other web site, or by clicking on a link on social media, the college could be tracking the source of your click.

Any of the above could be used by the college to determine how effective its marketing is, and to estimate the likelihood of an applicant matriculating if admitted (“level of applicant’s interest”).

You have asked on two different threads about colleges tracking search histories (they don’t). However, an incoming first year at the college my daughter will be attending in the fall had her admission revoked after someone took a screen shot of some of her social media posts, reposted tagging the school, and tweeting it with the girls name and future college. Depending on what you may have done, someone else could have some evidence and use it.

That being said, if there was an issue in middle school that resulted in any disciplinary action, your guidance counselor may feel the need to address it in their recommendation form, or by phone if they don’t want to put it in writing. It would depend on what exactly happened and who knows about it.

2 questions for you:

  1. I feel bad for your daughter, but was her incident in high school?
  1. I did have a slight incident in middle school, but it was resolved, and the issue I had was an out of school incident, but I have a different guidance counselor now, and I don't think that's going to be used against me. Just happy to know colleges don't look at search history, but do they look at what you do on your school issued google account, personal google account, or both? Thank you

It isn’t my daughter at all! It was another incoming first year student at her college. I have no idea about the specifics other than an email from the college saying that the incident was called to their attention and they revoked the admission of the student in question.

This morning’s Chicago Tribune had an article stating that this year they know of a dozen students who have had their admissions revolked over something they posted on social media this year alone.

But having said that, an admissions officer spends about 8-10 minutes looking at your application - total. That doesn’t leave a lot of time for internet searches about you, much less examining your cookies or social media posts. For them to withdraw your offer of admission, someone pretty much has to bring the incident to their attention.

Short of a major much-publicized felony, it is highly unlikely they will care what you did in middle school.

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Sorry for my mistake. Thanks for your help

Thanks for giving me all this information. What do admissions officers do in those 10 minutes they review your application? Your grades and essay? What classes you did and gpa? SAT scores? My incident was with an outside of school study group in which we were studying for a school competition, but it was outside of school. I don’t use social media, so I should be fine in that aspect. Thanks for your help.

If you are really concerned about your Google account records and settings, go to “Manage your Google account”, then go through every setting there to (a) turn off any recording or tracking, and (b) remove any stored records or data.

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How can I make sure I’ve deleted every record. I don’t want google having my data either

Yes, they review all of that. Along with your transcript, the school sends a “school report”. You can ask your guidance counselor for a copy. Among other things, the report may tell the college the demographics of your school and school district, the average GPA (weighted and unweighted), it tells how they weigh the GPA, the list/number of AP/IB/Honors classes offered, average test scores, etc. The school report says nothing about you personally - it is just the background of the school itself. If admissions isn’t familiar with your high school, they may review that first, so that when they get to your transcript, they are looking at that in the right context, and can better compare you to students from your own high school and to those from other schools.

By the time they read the school report, evaluate your transcript, judge your GPA and level or rigor, review your test scores, read your letters of recomendation and your essay, ponder your extracurriculars, thinking about all this with an eye towards how you might contribute to their campus, jot down a few notes… eight or ten minutes disappears quickly. There is simply no time to review irrelevant information from grade school.

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Thanks for the explanation.

http://www.cnet.com/how-to/google-collects-a-frightening-amount-of-data-about-you-you-can-find-and-delete-it-now/

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Thanks