College Class of 2013 Students Beware... Is a Company Behind Your Facebook Group?
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Brad Ward, the Electronic Communication Coordinator at Butler University noticed something strange about Butler's Class of 2013 group on Facebook... the administrator for the group had not actually been accepted to Butler. Alerted to something fishy by a colleague at Winthrop, Brad began digging deeper and noticed that a few names were behind hundreds of Class of 2013 groups on Facebook.
Company Uses Student Interns to Set Up Facebook Groups
Now the Common Application may make it easy to apply to a dozen schools, but three students appeared as the administrators for more than 40 Class of 2013 groups each. Ward eventually traced the Facebook users back to College Prowler, which had recruited students as unpaid interns to spearhead its "social marketing strategy."
Colleges Concerned About Use of Facebook Groups for Marketing
Ward and many of his colleagues at universities across the country expressed concern that these groups could have been used to "spam" students and push affiliate links onto unsuspecting students.
The Role of Colleges on Facebook
This started a healthy debate about what roles colleges should be playing on Facebook. Should they be actively engaging students, starting "official" Facebook groups for incoming classes, or leveraging other Facebook opportunities? Or should they take a more hands-off role allowing students to drive interactions related to college admissions? This latest incident is likely to push many colleges and universities to be more pro-active. Ward already intends to set up the OFFICIAL Butler Class of 2013 group, not because he wants to moderate the discussion, but because he wants to make sure students have a safe place to discuss Butler without having to worry about being marketed to by for-profit companies.
Labels: admissions, college, Facebook, marketing
College Admissions Officers May Be Checking Your Facebook Profile, But You Don't Need to Panic
Friday, October 3, 2008
You may want to be more careful what you post on your Facebook or MySpace profile, it could come back to haunt you. According to a Kaplan survey of 320 admissions officers, 1 in 10 had visited the profile of an applicant on a social networking process as part of their evaluation process for admissions.
The trend is not only present at the undergraduate level. Admissions officers at some business, law, and medical schools have also taken a look at social networking profiles in their decision-making process.
What Can You Do
While some may say, don't use these sites or don't post anything that you wouldn't want on your admissions application, that's probably an unrealistic demand. These sites can be great tools for connecting with friends, meeting new people, posting photos, or just having fun. Some of you probably check Facebook more often than you check e-mail.
However, there are a few steps that you may want to consider so that your profile does not come back to bite you.
Set Your Profile to Private
Most of the social networking sites, including Facebook and MySpace, have a way for you to adjust your privacy settings. It's probably a good idea to give full access to your profile only to friends. This will help you avoid having to decide every time you upload a picture, add an application, or post on a wall whether it's something you'd want an admissions officer to see.
Don't Mix Business and Pleasure
For those of you who may be artists, directors, or musicians, Facebook and MySpace can often be great places to showcase your work and share it with friends, family, and others. However, you're probably using the site for social reasons as well and everything may not be intended for the eyes of admission officers. If you want to send links to your portfolio to admissions officers, you should think about posting your work elsewhere as well. You may want to create a Flickr or YouTube account solely for your work and share links to these accounts as part of your college application.
Use a Little Judgment
We know that your Facebook profile may not be intended for viewing by admissions officers, or even your parents for that matter, but a little judgment may help you avoid some heartache down the road. If you're under 21, you probably should think twice about setting the photo of you with a beer in each hand and drool on your face as your profile picture. Illegal activity is probably not something you want to be highlighting for all to see. In fact, even if you're over 21, this photo may not be your best choice as a profile picture.
Labels: admissions, college, Facebook, MySpace, social networking