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\nAccording to the 364 colleges across the United States we recently spoke with,\u00a025 percent tell us that they have visited an applicant\u2019s social media page, such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter to learn more about them*. While that percentage is down from 2015\u2019s record high of 40 percent and 2016’s 35 percent, it\u2019s still a lot higher than what it was when we first asked this question in 2008\u2014when social media was in its early stages and Facebook was pretty much the only game in town. Consider that Twitter didn\u2019t launch until 2006; and Instagram wasn\u2019t around until 2010. Oh, and hashtags weren\u2019t a thing until 2007.
\nHere\u2019s where the data gets even more interesting: Of the\u00a035 percent in 2016, nearly half\u00a0said that what they found has had a positive impact on prospective students\u2014up from 37% last year. On the flip side, 42% say that what they found had a negative impact, up from 37% last year. Kaplan\u2019s survey also found that of the admissions officers who use social media to help them make decisions in 2016, 25%\u00a0did so \u201coften\u201d\u2014more than double the 11% who said they did it \u201coften\u201d in 2015\u2019s survey.
\nBut in 2018’s survey, 52 percent of the admissions officers who visited applicants’ social media profiles said that students have been moving away from social media platforms where posts and profiles are easily accessible by people they don’t know. For example,\u00a0
about <\/span><\/strong>85 percent of teens<\/a> say they use both Instagram and Snapchat — two platforms which make it easy to share posts with people you want and hard to find for people you don\u2019t — at least once per month. Meanwhile, just 36 percent of teens say they use Facebook once a month, which is down from 60 percent in 2016.\u00a0<\/span>
\nPositive Social Media<\/h4><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
\n- \u201cOne student described on Twitter that she facilitated an LGBTQ panel for her school, which wasn\u2019t in her application. This made us more interested in her overall and encouraged us to imagine how she would help out the community.\u201d<\/li>\n
- \u201cThere\u2019s such a negative stereotype of social media that people often forget about the positive effects of it. One student had won an award and had a picture with their principal on their personal page, and it was nice to see.\u201d<\/li>\n
- \u201cOne young lady started a company with her mom, so it was cool to visit
\ntheir website,\u201d added another admissions officer.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>
\nNegative Social Media<\/h4><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n
\n- \u201cWe found a student\u2019s Twitter account with some really questionable language. It wasn\u2019t quite racist, but it showed a cluelessness that you\u2019d expect of a privileged student who hadn\u2019t seen much of the world. It really ran counter to the rest of her application.\u201d<\/li>\n
- \u201cA young man who had been involved in a felony did not disclose his past, which is part of our admissions process. His social media page shared his whole story. If he had been forthcoming, we would not have rescinded his acceptance offer, but we had to.\u201d<\/li>\n
- One admissions officer said that pictures of a student \u201cbrandishing weapons\u201d gave him pause when deciding whether to admit the applicant.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>
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\nShould You Post That?<\/h3><\/div><\/div><\/div>
\nHere are the top five things you should ask yourself before you post:
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