40% of US colleges will now check your Facebook

The percentage of college admission officers who now admit to checking up on an applicant’s social media profiles – especially Facebook – is up to 40%.

And that’s a record number. At least according to Kaplan who has been recorded this trend since 2008 when that figure stood at a much lower 10%. In 2014 the figure was 35%

Additionally, 11% of admission officers admitted to checking up on those social media profiles “often”, and 29% admitted to using Google as well.

It’s just one of a number of different ways to which your personal social media profiles can have a much more substantial impact on your life than you may have previously realised. The study by Kaplan revealed that a social media profile was just as likely to have both a negative or positive impact on an applicant’s chances of getting accepted.

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It’s also another reason why those applying to colleges need to ensure that their Facebook privacy settings are appropriately set, as well as a good excuse to review what information you are sharing on other social media platforms, including Twitter.

Admission officers didn’t explicitly claim they were searching for inflammatory material – most “trigger points” included checking up on talents, interests, awards and more information about criminal backgrounds – but in doing so if excessively untoward content did crop up, it would perhaps be naïve to assume this wouldn’t be without consequences.

So, if you’re applying for college soon (or even if you’re not) make sure those social media profiles are up to scratch. You can follow our privacy guide for Facebook here.