The Student News Site of University Prep

The Puma Press

The Student News Site of University Prep

The Puma Press

The Student News Site of University Prep

The Puma Press

Sanitizing Social Media

Photo%3A+Jacob+Kauff
Photo: Jacob Kauff

Seniors put on a false front for colleges.

 

It’s that time of year again; no, not the holiday season, but when seniors stress about sending out their college applications. As their last year of high school continues, seniors are tackling the intimidating and thoughtful process of applying to colleges.

Colleges can do full security checks of your social media past. With this daunting possibility, a lot of seniors have started to clean up their social media profiles and information, erasing anything that could be seen as negative. With colleges inspecting every aspect of one’s life, there is exceeding pressure to make everything look flawless.

Many students get outside help and advice to make their applications the best they can be. College counselors at high schools everywhere are gearing up to meet with frantic seniors as they put the finishing touches on their college applications before they get sent out. As you never know what colleges might find out about you, taking down anything inappropriate on your social media profiles could be a smart move. What if colleges find your embarrassing picture as a 13 year-old pranking your teacher? Could something like that really change your whole future?

Many choose to take the safe road and go through with deleting many of their old Facebook photos or changing their social medias. Senior Griffin Voth has taken the extra precaution of altering his social media profiles.

“Personally, I changed my name on Facebook from Griffin Voth to Griffin James to make it a little harder for colleges to stalk me if they were to,” Voth said.

Voth believes that colleges look for responsible, young adults and evaluate applicants as a person.

“I definitely think that it’s a possibility for colleges to look up your profiles and you don’t want to take the risk of colleges seeing something that is bad on your page,” Voth said.

While many students choose to take the safe road, others decide to take the risk. However some students, such as senior Wynnie Newton, don’t change their profile because they feel that they have nothing to hide.

“I have not considered cleaning up my social media or changing my Facebook name because I don’t have anything bad on the internet, I am friends with my parents on some social media so there is nothing up there that I don’t want colleges to see,” Newton said.

Newton believes that your social media will affect the impression you leave on a college, but only if they look you up and see a whole bunch of photos of you doing inappropriate or illegal things. Many have to look at their social media as an agent that can make or break them in the college application process.

By: Emma Van Deursen and Jen Wen