Today’s teens are all over social media, keeping in touch and updating their activities on Facebook, posting comments on blogs they read, sharing music and movies they like on sharing sites, and some even chronicling their lives on blogs. Today’s teens also are worried about getting into college and pursuing their futures. Where these two activities intersect can be a good thing for teens today and you can use social media to help with college admissions.

Recent conversations I have had with college admissions representatives reveal that they do google students and they also look at their Facebook profiles:

A New England college with 4,500 undergraduates regularly googles student applicants. They will also have their admissions office student worker also look up the applicant on Facebook. Yes, I know about privacy settings but so many settings are not as tight as we would like to think.

Two large Florida public universities recently revealed at a SACAC meeting that they will look at an online profile if they receive information about a student that concerns them. They have also rescinded admission to their universities based on investigations of information in these profiles!

So what’s a teen today to do? Here are some suggestions:

• Make sure that Facebook and other profiles don’t show inappropriate activities. Yes, it can show fun activities, but keep it clean.
• Delete unwanted comments on profiles and untag unflattering pictures. Yes, to quote one of the best lines in the movie “The Social Network”: “the Internet is written in ink, not in pencil” and it never really goes away. But you can make it less accessible.
• Make a “YouTube” video of activities or community service.
• Follow the colleges of interest through social media. Become a fan of their Facebook page or follow a professor or dean on Twitter–you might come up with some great information to include in the answer to the question “why do you want to attend our university?”