Facebooking wisely

Along with transcripts and admissions essays, an increasing number of colleges also consider social networking websites, such as Facebook, when admitting students, a recent survey found. But some university professors are out to prove social networking sites can often work against students rather than in their favor.

While potential students don't have to worry about university admissions officers checking Facebook or Myspace pages, current students still have to be careful about what they post, officials said. Some university professors are driving that point home in the classroom through exercises designed to show students that Facebook can be easily accessed by teachers, admissions officers and potential employers.

When freshman psychology major Sam Gastley entered her UNIV100: The Student in the University class at the beginning of the year, she never imagined that her professor, Regina Huhtanen, would hand out a Facebook picture of her dressed in a sexy Santa costume to the rest of her class.

Along with Gastley's picture, Huhtanen passed out several other snapshots of students engaging in various activities with their faces blurred out in an effort to demonstrate how easily the photos could be obtained.

"I was embarrassed, but at the same time I was kind of angry," Gastley said. "It was taken when I was 14 — there are Barbie dolls in the background. The picture was misinterpreted. We were just a bunch of kids goofing around."

Despite initial outrage, Gastley learned an important lesson from the experience.

"You have to be cautious about the pictures you put on Facebook and be aware of how other people will interpret them," she said.

Since the lesson, Gastley has changed her privacy settings so that only her friends can see her pictures. She also deleted the picture in question.

Many students believe in order to fully enjoy Facebook, additional precautions need to be taken to ensure that potentially detrimental photos and posts are secure from the prying eyes of family and employers.

Sophomore sociology major Alexis Byars makes sure her profile is limited. She said she worries about family members seeing certain pictures so she takes extra precautions to ensure they're hidden. 

"I use privacy settings, so if a friends tags me in a picture, it doesn't show up to other people," she said. "My grandma, my parents and my aunt all have Facebooks. I don't want them seeing what's going on in my life."

Junior early childhood education major Helene Rosendorf keeps her page private because she worries about potential employers looking onto her site.

"I'm going into education, and a lot of teachers have had their Facebook looked at, and they haven't gotten hired," Rosendorf said. "I made my page private so only people I'm friends with can look." 

Rosendorf believes that the lessons taught by Huhtanen are vital for students to learn. 

"Now is the time to learn that once you put something on the Internet, it's out there for everyone to see," Rosendorf said.

Although this university is decidedly old-school when it comes to its decision-making, a recent study conducted by Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions released last month reported that in a survey of 401 universities and colleges, 30 percent have or are developing policies on the use of social media in admissions. It also noted 71 percent of admissions officers said they or a colleague had received friend requests from students on MySpace or Facebook.

"That's not a part of our routine application review process," Director of Undergraduate Admissions Shannon Gundy said.

redding at umdbk dot com