Bad Online Behavior Jeopardizes Students' College Plans

By Robin L. Flanigan

Ed Week

Stellar transcripts aside, students now have to worry about an increasing number of colleges peering at their social-networking pages online—and potentially denying their applications because of what they find there.

The number of college-admissions officials using Facebook and other social-networking sites to learn more about applicants quadrupled over the past year, according to New York City-based Kaplan Test Prep, the test preparation division of Kaplan Inc.

In the company’s 2011 survey of admissions officers from the top 500 colleges and universities, 24 percent said they have viewed publicly available pages to get a clearer picture of an applicant, while 20 percent turned to Google. Twelve percent reported that their discoveries, including photos showing underage drinking, vulgarities in blogs, and plagiarism in essays, negatively affected the chance of admission.

Educators, mostly at the high school level, use assemblies, classroom discussions, and guidance sessions to warn students about such consequences. But even educators who say they continuously hammer home the golden rule—in essence, that students should never post anything online they wouldn’t want their parents to see—are finding it hard to get through to a generation weaned on social media.

“The disconnect happens because of their age and level of maturity,” said Franklin N. Caesar, the principal of the 1,875-student Central Islip Senior High School in Central Islip, N.Y. “We’re constantly dealing with students who are inappropriate in what they say online.”

Two years ago, he started meeting with principals at lower-level schools to talk about the daily altercations he was dealing with because of comments posted on Facebook and other social-networking sites. They have met regularly since, and this year began an education program for 5th graders to address the potential ramifications of their online behavior—including a rejected college application.

“By bombarding them with information at that age,” said Mr. Caesar, “and then again in the sixth grade, seventh grade, and eighth grade, we’re hoping that by the time they get to high school, they’ll understand and it will make a difference. It’s too late if they get here and they haven’t been hearing that message.”

In the meantime, guidance counselors at Central Islip convey that message in a senior assembly at the beginning of the year and during an annual technology fair.

Eric Sheninger, the principal of the 680-student New Milford High School in New Milford, N.J., recalled having students in a Digital Journalism class Google themselves to become more familiar with their digital footprints. The students, in grades 9-12, were surprised at the “page after page of content” that came up. One girl was astonished when she found a picture of herself she’d never seen before; she couldn’t even remember where or when it was taken.

Next, Mr. Sheninger took a poll: Seventy-five percent of the students had accepted a “friend” request on Facebook from someone they’d never met. He had them consider the fact that if they post an inappropriate picture, anyone can easily take a screen shot of that image and post it anywhere online without permission.

Teaching Better Online Behavior

Experts say schools can take steps to help students avoid engaging in online behavior that could jeopardize their chances of being accepted into college. Steps include:

Start Disussions Early
Conversations about the impact social-media pages can have on the college-admissions process should start long before high school. Students have had years of opportunity by then to create questionable profiles.

Encourage Web Searches
Have students Google themselves. They’ll likely be surprised and sometimes very concerned at what turns up.

Repeat the Message
Drill home in classrooms, assemblies, and guidance-counselor meetings the potential dangers of inappropriate social-media behavior.

Get Parents Involved
Chances are that parents are unaware that their child’s digital footprint can affect college applications, and many times what happens outside of school ends up spilling onto school grounds and quickly onto social-networking sites.

Craft a Formal Plan
Lower-, middle-, and high school-level educators would do well to co-develop a formalized plan for encouraging positive social-media choices and stressing the dangers of poor ones.

SOURCE: Education Week

“Then I told them, ‘Let’s say a college pulls up that image. They’re going to think twice about …

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Robin L. Flanigan is a freelance writer based in Rochester, N.Y.

Special coverage on the alignment between K-12 schools and postsecondary education is supported in part by a grant from the Lumina Foundation for Education, at www.luminafoundation.org.