Did you know that some College Admission Boards check Social Networking Sites when they vet a student before they make that final decision to accept or reject their college applications? Hopefully this fact does not surprise the majority of our readers.

According to a Survey conducted by the Kaplan Test Prep, of those colleges surveyed in 2011, 24% have reviewed the prospective students Social Networking and Facebook accounts. In addition, 20% have used Google to see what was available online. It should be noted that this is not a routine procedure, but is usually triggered after the college gets an anonymous tip or an online forum post.

In the past, before all of these Social Networking Sites, the College Admission Boards could only vet the student by reviewing the information that was submitted to them. There really wasn’t a lot of information for them to review outside of that.

But now,  Colleges have the option to do a simple Google search on your children and get a very good idea of their character, who their friends are, if they posted any inappropriate photos of themselves on Facebook… I think you are getting the picture.

This is just one more reason, and it is a significant one, to carefully guide and monitor your children’s online activities. You need to sit down and explain to them in detail what constitutes appropriate behavior while they are on the internet. Something that you children may think is no big deal to post online, may later turn out to be significant enough to keep them from getting into the College of their choice.

Make sure that you have access to all of your children’s Social Media Networking sites. Review these sites at least once of week. If you find anything inappropriate on these sites bring it to their attention immediately. Sit down and patiently explain to your child why they should not be posting this type of material on the internet and delete it from the site. Taking the time to monitor their activity online will be a wise investment in their future.

Read more about the Kaplan Test Prep’s 2011 Survey

Photo Credit Bernard Goldbach