How I Use Social Media, Part 2

Yesterday's blog post was about how I use social media, in general, in my work. The quick summary from the end of that post:

1. I like social media.
2. I don't have time to search for students on the internet.
3. If you include #UVA in a tweet or photo, you're asking our entire community to see it. 

I imagine that some were thinking "Dean J, the New York Times just said 31% of admission officers look students up online. What's that about?" That statistic was generated from a phone survey of 381 admission officers (that's not a huge sample). I'm fairly certain I got the call because I vaguely remember thinking the questions were strangely worded. They didn't ask about how systematic Googling applicant names was. They ask if we had ever done it.

Here are three instances where I might turn to the internet for more information while reading a file and some real examples from my career:


1. There's something really, really cool in a file.
I'm starting with my favorite instance, but this isn't a daily thing. Every now and then, a student talks about something that interests me and I turn to Google to get some more information about it.

Several years ago, when cupcakes were just starting to enjoy a surge in popularity, a student wrote about starting her own cupcake business. She researched best practices for small businesses, analyzed costs, and launched a true business. I was so impressed (and probably hungry) that I searched for the business name to see the fabulous cupcakes about which I had just read.

Now I want a cupcake.


2. I need more information about a school.
This is probably the most common situation for me. Your college counselor submits a high school profile with their part of the application. Profiles explain the hierarchy of the curriculum in place at schools, grading scales, and methodologies for calculating statistics like GPA and rank. I'm sure you're aware that these things vary a lot from school to school. Once in a while, there's something missing from the profile and I usually turn to the web to find the information if it's after hours and I know there isn't going to be a counselor to talk to by phone.

Just the other day, I was reading an application from a school that gave general information about the curriculum, but didn't list specific courses in each discipline. There was no way for me to know what the top course offered was in each subject area. Google gave me this year's student handbook which included all the courses being offered this year.


3. Something seems too good to be true.
Like my first example, this isn't something that happens often. This is rare, but there are times when something seems off or wrong in a file and I turn to the internet for more information. A call to a high school counselor usually follows.

While reading the file of a student who attended the public high school in my hometown, I saw that she listed herself as the founder of a club you can find at many high schools. I was certain the club existed years ago and Googled the club out of curiosity to see if they had an online presence. The club didn't exist online, but the counselor confirmed that the club was new. Perhaps the organization existed when I was still in town and faded away soon after.

One more example: A colleague read a file in which an applicant said they were in charge of the Parks and Recreation department in their town and managed a budget that was a couple million dollars.

It seemed improbable that a town with a big enough operation to need that kind of budget wouldn't have a full-time director. A quick search revealed that the town did, in fact, have a Parks and Recreation department with a full time staff. A call revealed that the student was on an advisory board.




Please don't think that every admission officer around the country is prowling the web for information about applicants. Applications are pretty robust these days and provide us with the information we need in our review. I'm sure there are exceptions, but here and at many other colleges, the reading load each officer has is substantial. Can you imagine what our reading season would be like if we were Googling 30,000 applicants and combing Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for them, too?

How I Use Social Media, Part 1

Almost every year since I started doing work in social media, there have been periods when journalists have gotten really interested in how social media is used in college admission. Sometimes we get painted as creepy folks trolling the internet for dirt about applicants.

One time, a survey asked admission officers if they had a Facebook presence. The results were reported a little differently.

Aaaah! Panic!

Really quickly after the group behind the survey put out a press release, all sorts of papers and news sites picked up on the story. This was on Time Magazine's website a few days later:

OMG, now we're stalkers?

I got a ton of calls and emails from folks asking me to comment, which I happily did. First of all, we don't have time to be digging around for information about our applicants. I don't even have time to eat lunch during reading season. I have files to read. Second of all, I think most teens are perfectly aware of privacy settings and they lock their information down.

A few months after that happened, I wanted to use the press release and resulting stories in a presentation to some new professionals at a conference. When I went to grab screen shots, I found an update from the Kaplan folks, who were behind the original survey. The update was added onto the original story, but I don't remember any media outlet picking up on that.

Doesn't that sound less scary that the original message?


Things have changed a little bit since that all happened. Students found Twitter and Instagram. I joined Twitter a long time ago. In fact, 1.45% of users have been on Twitter longer than I have been. That's a lot of people, but suffice it to say, I've been on Twitter since before most of our applicants knew what it was. Back then, it was really popular with people who worked in academia. It was a great way to keep up with what was happening all around the University.

Many (most?) people who do a lot of work with social media use a client to keep track of their different feeds. It's akin to a stock ticker on your computer screen. Mine has columns for my home feed, private messages, mentions, and my favorite hashtags. All day long, the feeds scroll. I don't watch them all the time, but I glance at them fairly regularly. Twitter is probably the fastest way to get an answer from me if you have a question because I have that client open all day. It gives me a little pop up notification if someone mentions me. 

Here's what my favorite hashtag feed looked like a few minutes ago as I was getting ready to write this post:

I do the same thing with Instagram. I downloaded Instagram when Hipstamatic was THE big photo sharing app. You don't remember that? It wasn't long ago (2010), but you had to pay $1.99 for Hipstamatic. Another blogger told me that Instagram was the free alternative. Well, look at what happened. We're all on Instagram and Hipstamatic isn't dominant anymore.

The UVA hashtag on Instagram is full of gorgeous pictures from around the Grounds (along with some pictures of grapes and grape products, por supuesto). I love checking it and so do many others in the UVa community.

On Twitter and Instagram, I think you need to be careful about your profiles and your use of hashtags. You might forget that a hashtag with a school name in it is probably used by students, faculty, administrators, and people in the community. That's the point of a hashtag...to share something with people interested in the same topic.

The vast, vast majority of my interaction with students online is awesome. That's why I keep writing blog posts, tweeting, and sharing images on Instagram. Once in a blue moon, something comes to my attention that raises an eyebrow. I usually address it. For example, a high school student once tweeted mean comments about the physical appearance of the admission dean giving an information session. He tagged the posts with #UVA. I wrote right back. He apologized. I didn't take a screen shot or try to figure out the student's real name so I could connect the tweets to an application. 

To summarize:

1. I like social media.
2. I don't have time to search for students on the internet.
3. If you include #UVA in a tweet or photo, you're asking our entire community to see it. 


Next time, I'll talk about how we use social media during the reading process.


Update: Here's How I Use Social Media, Part 2.