Can Facebook hurt a teenager’s chances of getting accepted to colleges?

Specifically can the stuff that students post on Facebook impact their chances?

Unigo, the popular college research website, recently posed that question to admission experts from around the country. Unigo offered to share some of the responses with my college blog visitors.  You can find the rest of the answers on Unigo’s website.

Question: Can what I post on Facebook affect my chances of getting accepted?

Answers:

Carolyn Blair, Counseling Services Director, Clayton High School

Anything that is in the public domain is fair game, just be careful.

As the age of the admissions officers become younger and younger, Facebook and other social networks are simply part of their culture.  It used to be that admission offices would have a lot of hoops to get through to even access this information.  Now many grandparents have a Facebook account.

While there aren’t many schools actively searching students facebook accounts for incriminating information, when you look at who is working in admission there are often many students.  Some student could be from your school of hometown.  Play this out and it wouldn’t take much for inappropriate behavior to reach the eyes of someone in an admission office.  Best case scenario is to play it safe!

Stephanie Meade, Owner, The Collegiate Edge

Would you let your grandmother see your Facebook page?

College admissions officers are generally way too busy for Facebook but, if they have a question or concern, they may look you up. Since many young, tech-savvy people work in admissions, and because you don’t know who your Facebook friends know, you should never have a comment or photo visible or linkable that does not pass “the grandma test.” That means no pictures, links, or posts (even as a joke) about partying, drugs, sex, guns or anything else that could be misinterpreted by someone who does not know you. Keep it clean. An admissions officer (or grandma) may be checking!

Gwyeth Smith, President & CEO, College Quest Inc.

Facebook can show both the best and worst of you.

Be smart, be vigilant, and be mature as you post on Facebook. It is important to know that many admission counselors are just a few years older than you. All are members of the technology generation which make lives very public. It is a wonderful vehicle for illustrating contributions you’ve made and special accomplishments you’ve enjoyed with organizations. Keep the information current and consider postings that might reflect the kind of involvement the college might expect from you as a member of their community.

Deborah Shames, Transfer Admissions Advisor, Kaplan Leadership Program

Don’t expect privacy when posting online, everything can be found. You should have absolutely no expectation of privacy online.

Your words and pictures should not portray unethical, illegal, or unflattering behavior. Even with the privacy settings you (hopefully) place on your own account, when posting on another wall, you don’t know who might read it, save it or maliciously use it against you.

While I doubt admissions officers have the time to look you up on Facebook, why risk it.   As my mother always says, don’t put anything in writing that you would be embarrassed to have your grandmother read 10 minutes, 10 weeks, or 10 years from now!

If you’ve visited my college blog in the past, you probably did a double take today.

Yes, The College Solution looks dramatically different. And all I can say to that is THANK GOODNESS!

I had grown sick of the old look last year, but it required a lot of work before the launch day for the new site finally arrived.

You’ll find all my old posts still archived on the site and I’ll continue to blog about college as often as I did in the past. I hope that the new look to The College Solution will make visiting my college blog a more enjoyable experience. If you haven’t spent much time on the site, please do. There is lots to explore.

I think my updated college blog looks at least 1,000 times better than the old one. I want to thank Mike Dickerman, who redesigned the website from North Carolina and Visual Asylum for their design work — including the banner — right here in San Diego.

The blog is not completely finished, but it was in good enough shape to unveil the site today. I’d love to hear what you think.

As for me, I’m celebrating tonight.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes a college blog for CBSMoneyWatch.com. Follow her on Twitter.

Celebration image by Anders Andermark. CC 2.0.

Today I wanted to share with you a Q&A about college issues that I did with a well-respected financial advisory firm in St. Louis, which is my home town. The firm’s director of communications interviewed me and published the answers this month in the firm’s client newsletter.

I thought you might appreciate seeing what I said:

Q: What prompted you to write about choosing a college?

A: Through my book and college blogs, I want to help families with college-bound teenagers find the best academic matches possible, whether public or private, for the least amount of money.

Q: What do you mean when you say college price tags are virtually meaningless?

A: Today, college degrees are priced like airline tickets. When you take a flight, probably everyone in your row has paid a different price. It’s the same with colleges. Colleges value teenagers differently and will give better prices to students they really want to attend their school. This is true even if you are affluent. Every school has its own priority list for the types of students it wants to attract. To get those kids to attend, colleges have to kick in some money.

Q: Should affluent parents fill out financial aid forms?

A: Affluent parents should fill out financial aid forms. Many families assume that they won’t receive need-based aid, but affluent families can be eligible if a college is expensive. For instance, a family making between $150,000 and $200,000 could get up to $25,000 in need-based aid if the student attends a $50,000+ college. In addition, an affluent family will significantly increase their chances for need-based aid if there is more than one child attending college.

Q: When did merit awards become the norm?

A: It started in the 1990s. It used to be that schools would save their money for low-income kids, and then a handful of scholarships for brainy kids. Then, people started focusing on U.S. News & World Report’s rankings, and it became a high-stakes game for colleges and universities to inch up the prestige ladder.

Q: And that’s merit based?

A: Tuition discounts can refer to the price cut that schools give to students whether or not they qualify for need-based aid. Remember that state schools are also trying to attract bright kids from outside their own state by giving them tuition cuts.

Q: Regarding the rankings, why are evaluations of schools often superficial?

A: U.S. News and World Report evaluates colleges based on factors that have nothing to do with the quality of the education that students receive. The biggest factor in the college rankings is the general reputation of a school. The rankings also depend on the exclusivity of a school and the average test scores and grades of incoming freshmen. Those measurements tell you nothing about what kind of education students will encounter at an individual school.

Q: What can a student do to stand out from the rest with a college admissions office?

A: The biggest factor in college admission is usually a student’s grade point average and the strength of his high school course work. SAT and ACT scores typically come in after that.

Q: If you could give parents just one suggestion, what would it be?

A: The best thing that parents can do is to tell their children not to stress so much.  Seventy-nine percent of high school seniors get into their No. 1 college choice. The college admission process is not as competitive as students and parents think.

Lynn O’Shaughnessy is the author of The College Solution and she also writes a college blog for CBSMoneyWatch. Follow her on Twitter.

St. Louis image by rustybrick. CC 2.0.