Facebook and College Admissions

zeinX
Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:07:46 +0000

As a future college athlete, I’ve been warned to put EVERYTHING on private and defriend people who I don’t actually know, even if they “go” to the same high school or college- police will actually create false profiles and join networks to friend students, and then pursue them for illegal activity- i.e. underage drinking, drug use, and so on. True story.

I don’t participate in drinking or anything else illegal for my age group/illegal in general, and I untag questionable pictures (i.e. where there’s a multitude of red cups, which are actually innocent, but can be misinterpreted). ALL of my settings are set to friends only- it can be difficult to do this, but it’s worth the time and effort to mark every photo album as private, and so on.

I also don’t post things I wouldn’t want people I’m not as friendly with to view- for example, I have some friends who I do know, but am not close with, nor do I see them often. I don’t want them to judge me/get the wrong impression without actively knowing me in person and seeing me frequently, so I just don’t post questionable material.

If you really want to fling about vulgar language and inappropriate material, I suggest you severely limit your friends to those who you know closely and see regularly and trust- and encourage them to also set severe limits regarding who can see uploaded material.