We’ve touched on this trend numerous times in the ReputationDefender Blog, but it continues to pop up in the mainstream media. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, a new survey from the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) indicates that approximately 25% of colleges use social networking sites or search engines to research applicants.

While the article does not state which colleges participated in the study, students should not risk the chance of having obscene or unflattering material online. With information readily available through only a few keystrokes and a click of the mouse, students must take a proactive stance in monitoring their social networking profiles. What does this mean? In the words of David Hawkins, the director of public policy and research for NACAC,  “Don’t post anything that you don’t want your mother or father or college admission officer to see.”

From the article:

The report, which also looked at colleges’ use of the Internet to recruit students, was written by Nora Ganim Barnes, director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She said some colleges turn to the social websites because “no school wants to give a prestigious scholarship to someone standing on a beer keg and wearing a lampshade.”

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