While many high school seniors adopt pseudonyms on social media websites to avoid college admissions officers’ searches, a new study reveals that the majority of schools do not investigate an applicant’s online presence.
An upcoming study from Kaplan found that “fewer than 1 in 3 admissions officers say they check students’ social media postings or Google them when evaluating applications,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports. While the number of admissions officers that do check on students has consistently risen over the past few years, many expressed a need to respect applicants’ privacy.
“That’s their private space. I just think it’s the wrong thing to do. Imagine if we could remove ourselves to an age when people wrote wonderful letters back and forth. We wouldn’t be searching through that. So I think it’s wrong to do just because it’s there,” Stanford University’s dean of admissions told the Chronicle.
An admissions officer at UC Berkeley said that the school would not be able to Google every applicant, so just searching for some would make the process unfair.
However, this also leads to many students’ application supplements being overlooked. The direction of admissions at Harvey Mudd said that he does not usually have time to look at submissions that highlight an applicant’s prowess outside of the classroom, such as musical talent.