Do you regret that picture your friend took at a party a few months back? Are you sorry that you posted that negative comment about one of your teachers? If you are a high school senior, now is the time to clean up your on-line profile.
Continue readingMore College Admissions Offices Are Looking at Facebook Pages Than Ever Before – Time to Clean Up That Profile!
A new study from Kaplan shows that more admissions counselors than ever before are considering social networking sites when reviewing prospective applicants for admission. It may be time to clean up that profile!
Continue readingPinterest and College Planning?
How can Pinterest help you in planning for life after high school? Read more to find out.
Continue readingBe Nice! (Part 2) It All Counts, Even on Facebook
Many colleges these days have Facebook pages that are maintained by admissions departments. So, before you go posting negative things on a college’s Facebook wall, read my thoughts and remember how important it is to be nice in a public forum.
Continue readingNeed Help Filling Out Your Common App? Try Facebook!
Check out the Common Application Facebook page for some helpful tips as you work on your application.
Continue readingCollege Student Centers in the Age of Social Media
On a recent tour of colleges and universities in Pennsylvania, I kept noticing that most of the common spaces on these campuses were relatively quiet. Obviously, the time of day and the day of the week can make a difference in how many people one observes scurrying through student centers.
And yet, one of my student tour guides admitted to me that the common spaces were almost always dead on her campus–even though it was a residential college (and not a commuter campus). I asked her why, and she launched into a very well-developed thesis on how Facebook, texting, and other social media has obviated the need for physical space for students to congregate: they tend to congregate online.
Brilliant observation. So I recorded this short video at Drexel University to share some of my thoughts on the issue. If you prefer, you can read the transcript below.
Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant
TRANSCRIPT:
Right now I’m on the campus of Drexel University, and it’s in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, right next door to the University of Pennsylvania. And I’m here in the Student Center where it’s pretty well deserted right now. This is the morning, but I’ve had a similar experience at most of the other campuses I visited no matter what time of day or night. Many of the student’s spaces are pretty well empty, and it wasn’t until I was talking to a tour guide at Ursinus College, which is about 35 or 40 minutes north of Philadelphia, and she was saying, “Yeah, this is the way it usually is. The Student Center is not very busy.” And she was quick to add that the reason for that is that students are connecting in different ways. That they’re connecting on Facebook, and they are certainly communicating by text also. But they’re not having to physically meet in a particular place in order to make arrangements for what kind of social stuff they’re going to do, and I was telling her about my own experience in college; how if we wanted to connect with other students, we didn’t even have land phone lines in our rooms. We had to physically go to another students’ room and leave a note on the whiteboard outside that said meet me at such and such a place, at such and such a time.
So, the Student Centers have taken on a very different role in student life, and it’ll be interesting to see over the next, you know, few years even what happens to these spaces, because they’re not being used as intensively as they once were simply because students are communicating in a different way. And this is important really for parents to remember, especially, because they may walk into these student common spaces, and think, “Where are all the people? Why aren’t they congregating?” Well, remind ourselves that’s how we communicate with our own students, and that’s the way our students are connecting with each other. So, it’s not necessarily indicative of the college; it’s indicative of the way in which we have radically transformed the communications among people. It’s going to have an impact on campuses across the country.
Your Personal Brand: Could Google Hurt Your College Admissions Chances?
Embarrassing photos? Foul language? Clean it up–admissions officers are watching!
Continue readingFacebook and College Admissions
Facebook’s impact on college admissions continues to increase.
Continue readingFreshman Orientation Comes Eight Months Early
Facebook groups allow students to meet their future classmates eight months early.
Continue readingNew Privacy Settings on Facebook
Facebook continues to be a popular medium for students and college officials to communicate. We have all heard horror stories of students posting some “not so flattering” material on Facebook for the entire world to see (including college admission officers).
Recently, Facebook upgraded their privacy settings and even though the new changes have received mixed results, it is a good time for everyone to review the material you have posted on Facebook and who can see it. The NYTimes.com posted a piece on the settings and what has changed. However, I also like an article posted on NYTimes.com in September titled: 5 Easy Steps to Stay Safe (and Private!) on Facebook. You may have to apply some of the principles in the article using the new Facebook settings, but again it is still a good reminder!
Katherine Price