Q: Do colleges really check my social media accounts? My mother is convinced that they do and wants me to delete everything!
A: A recent study by Kaplan Test Prep found that 35% of admission officers say that they check an applicant's social media. Can what they find there sway a decision? Of course!! But it's not always a negative.
Many college admission officers state that social media can actually have a positive impact on a decision.
Of the college admission reps that said that they check social media, 47% said that what they found online has had a positive impact on an admission decision. Anecdotally, we've seen the same. One of our seniors last year had a handwritten note on her acceptance letter. It said, "we follow you on Twitter and love your insight and perspective." In the case of this particular student, she had used her Twitter feed as more of a blog than an encapsulation of or commentary on her daily life. And on the flip side, we had a recruited athlete that was dropped by a college coach because of the insensitive nature of some of his posts with regards to women and LGBTQ individuals.
Do you need to delete all social media? Of course not. "I might actually wonder why a student didn't have any online presence," said a college rep in our office recently. But if you wouldn't put that post on a billboard -- take it down!