Samantha Blons
Assistant News Editor
It is no surprise to students that Facebook and MySpace profiles are fair game to Pepperdine administrators.
It has been more than three years since the University began using photographs from social networking sites as evidence in disciplinary hearings, including one that placed a Greek organization on probation in 2005. It is also known that these sites can cost new graduates a job if employers go fishing through Facebook albums.
But this month, Kaplan Test Prep gave students one more reason to be wary of uploading incriminating photos to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. A new Kaplan survey of American universities revealed that 10 percent of undergraduate college admissions officers have used social networking sites during the admissions process.
More important to Pepperdine students, however, is the number of professional schools that use the sites during the admissions process: nine percent for business school, 14 percent for medical school and, topping the list, 15 percent for law schools nationwide.
However, Pepperdine’s School of Law does not use social networking sites in the admissions process, according to Shannon Phillips, executive director of admissions, student information and financial services. She speculated that law schools might be the most likely to use them because of the ethical requirements implicit in the practice of law.
“[A law school applicant’s] background is maybe more important … just because of the work in the legal profession and how you have to maintain certain ethics and types of behavior,” Phillips said. Phillips participated in the Kaplan survey.
“If we did it for one [student,] we should do it for all,” Phillips said. “It’s a huge debate in the admissions arena right now. We don’t want to go there.”
Senior Marquette Bycura said while she is careful about what she posts online, she does not believe that schools can actually monitor the Web profiles of all their applicants.
“With law schools, they’re not going to go to everyone’s Facebook,” she said. “Do you know how much time that would take?” Bycura is taking the LSAT this month and applying to a masters’ program at Pepperdine’s School of Law next year.
The Kaplan survey, released Sept. 18, suggests that sometimes applicants can benefit from schools viewing their profiles. A quarter of the admissions officers who reported viewing social networking sites reported that the sites “generally” had a positive effect on students’ evaluations, according to Kaplan representatives.
However, more than a third reported that the content they found on these sites “generally” had a negative effect on admissions evaluations.
One or two students have been excluded from incoming freshmen classes at Seaver College in recent years because of content on their social networking sites, according to Michael Truschke, dean of Admission and Enrollment Management. Though Seaver does not view Web profiles for most applicants, admissions officers have done so in a “small number” of cases to obtain supplemental information.
“We have used it on very rare occasions,” Truschke said. “But we certainly don’t use it as a formal practice in the admissions process. If something really makes us think we need more information — positive or negative — we might go and look at it.”
When admissions officers do decide to look at an applicant’s Web profile, it is usually because of exceptional qualities exhibited in the formal application, Truschke said.
However, some students question whether University officials should be looking at an applicant’s profile without his or her permission.
“That sounds shady at best,” junior Scott Miller said. “If their intentions are really that noble, they should be more open and upfront with the [applicants].”
Truschke added that admissions would not use Facebook or MySpace profiles as a factor in deciding between two qualified applicants, but is instead reserved for “really extreme situation[s] on either end of the spectrum.”
Most of the 320 schools Kaplan surveyed have no official policies or guidelines for using social networking sites. At those schools that do, usually the policy is not to visit the applicants’ profiles.
09-25-2008