A recent New York Times article recounts the story of a college applicant whose explicit and offensive tweets were noticed by the college admissions officers at the school to which she was applying. Although the student was ultimately rejected because of an unsatisfactory academic record, not the tweets, the incident raises the question of whether examining social media is a proper means of determining whether to accept an applicant to an institution of higher education.
According to a survey of college admissions officers conducted by Kaplan, almost one third of respondents said that they had looked at an applicant’s social network pages to supplement the information given in the formal application, and almost all of them said they found something that negatively impacted the applicant’s chances of gaining acceptance. These findings are disconcerting. But even more disconcerting than the increasing amount of reliance on social media by admissions officers is the lack of regulations for such a practice. Christine Brown, executive director of college prep programs at Kaplan Test Prep told the New York Times “most colleges don’t have formal policies about admissions officers supplementing students’ files with their own online research.”
The lack of standards for this supplemental research puts a great amount of power in the hands of the admissions officers — an uncomfortable amount, when you consider the extremely subjective nature of evaluating content on a person’s social media web page. Does the use of expletives, for example, warrant a lower assessment of a student’s character? Such language indeed may be used in a denigrating manner, but it also may be used in a light-hearted or humorous manner. And the distinction may be difficult to make, especially by someone who does not know the user personally, like an admissions officer.
This impersonal level of knowledge also creates the risk of mistaken identity. A Facebook user with the same name as a particular college applicant or even an imposter who has menacingly created an account under that applicant’s name could sway the judgments of an admissions officer. If an applicant were to be rejected on the basis of such false information and was not notified of the reason for his rejection — as is often the case — he would have no opportunity to defend himself by correcting the error.
But even if there were some way to ensure the correct Internet identities of all candidates, unfair evaluations would still be an issue. Because admissions officers seek out such information at their own discretion, different applicants for the same institution may be evaluated based on different criteria, creating an inconsistent selection process. If an admissions officer decides to examine the social media profile of an applicant and determines that photos of underage drinking, for example, warrant a lower rating of the applicant, all other admissions officers at that institution would have to evaluate their applicants in the same way, for consistency. Given that the number of students applying to college has been increasing, admissions officers probably would not have the time or resources to conduct this extensive kind of evaluation for everyone.
College admissions is a process that is known to cause disappointments and even heartbreaks; year after year, there are outcries about admission standards being unfair. Ultimately, admissions officers must make some judgment calls in order to decide which students are more qualified for acceptance to a university. But relying on social media for information is simply too subjective. It sets a precedent that establishes an unequal playing field among applicants. Making the process completely fair and unbiased may not be possible, but universities should still try to get as close to these standards as possible. Utilizing social media profiles is not a means to achieve that goal.
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