Social media has been a part of the mainstream for quite some time. That has turned it into normalcy, and we’ve included it in virtually every aspect of our lives. Just as the business world uses social media, and recruiters tend to check social media accounts of applicants, the same has started happening in the world of education. Colleges have started looking at students’ social media accounts.In this article, we thought we would examine what the colleges of today are doing in regards to students’ social media profiles. More importantly, we wanted to see whether or not that’s the right thing to do.

How Are Colleges Reviewing the Social Media of Students

Each college is different, of course. Some care about students’ social media accounts, among many other things, but others still use traditional methods when accepting new students. 

The more prominent schools across America are, naturally, looking at everything they can when accepting students. Colleges like Harvard University, which has a single-digit acceptance rate, cannot afford to be anything less than meticulous. In 2017, they didn’t accept ten applicants because their team found out that they had participated in a private group called ‘Harvard memes for horny bourgeois teens.’

The University of Richmond, on the other hand, doesn’t look at students’ social media profiles on their own. However, their admissions officers do when the students highlight their social media accounts in their applications. 

Many other schools that don’t look at social media still tend to check the profiles when a third party sends some troubling information about a candidate.

What Does the Research Say?

A survey on the opinion of admissions officials stated that 68% of colleges feel that it’s completely fine to check social media accounts of potential students. However, barely 30% of them say that they end up checking those profiles; they only feel that they should if they need to. What’s interesting about this research is that the number of colleges checking social media has declined from 40% in 2015, to 29% in 2018.

Another survey showed that private, not-for-profit institutions are more likely to check social media. In addition, of all schools surveyed, 41% say that they will review social media when an issue is presented to them about a potential student. 

The most important thing we found in this research is that 11% of schools, which ended up reviewing social media, denied admission because of specific content they didn’t like. 

The Bottom Line

The schools in the US seem to be divided on the issue. Some check social media, some don’t, and some don’t think it’s relevant. 

However, that doesn’t mean that things won’t change in the future. Whatever the case may be, we feel that social media should be used as a supplement to other, more relevant admissions material. It’s certainly useful in judging the character of a student and whether or not they fit into the overall campus culture.