A wholesome Facebook profile especially important for scholarship students

An untarnished ‘digital personality’ may be especially important for scholarship or honors college students.

A recent survey revealed that colleges are snooping online to check applicants

Nearly a quarter (24%) of admissions officials at 359 selective colleges say they used Facebook, up from 6% the previous year, and 20% used Google to help evaluate an applicant, says the survey, conducted byKaplan Test Prep….

Of survey takers who went online, 12% say what they found “negatively impacted” the applicant’s chances of admission. That’s down from 38% in 2008, when 10% said they consulted social networking sites while evaluating students. Among offenses cited: essay plagiarism, vulgarities in blogs and photos showing underage drinking.

Of course, not every applicant is checked.

Marthers and others say such checks are not routine — it’s too time-consuming, for one thing. But “if ever a post is brought to our attention, you can be certain we’ll check it out,” says Ray Brown, admission dean at Texas Christian University. He says he rejected one applicant who, he discovered through an anonymous tip, had posted pornographic images of herself online.

It appears you are more likely to be checked if you’re being considered for a scholarship or for a spot in a school’s honors program.  Here’s one anecdote.

After I went to a scholarship weekend at my state’s flagship school, I learned that they searched those students on facebook. They only searched the top 100 students out of the 20,000+ who applied, but if you are in elite (top 1%) of applicants at a school, you should be wary that you will probably be searched, whether on Google or Facebook or Twitter or any other site. I know one student who was up for a big scholarship at an LAC, and when she showed up for an interview they asked her about articles and studies she had posted on a website. Granted, these were all great pieces of research and intelligent discussions that she had posted, things that helped her in the admissions process, but she had not included all of it in her application and these things had been found by the ADCOM.

Shawn Abbott, an admissions officer formerly at Stanford and now at NYU confirms digital snooping.

“Though we certainly have better uses of our time than trolling Facebook for evidence of deviant behavior, if we’re prompted to look at a website posting and what we find is in conflict with our standards for admission, of course we may be influenced by that information in making admission decisions or revoking decisions already made,” he said.

Abbott cited situations in which “evidence of illegal activity, academic integrity violations and racist commentary” would prompt a revoked admissions offer. According to the Kaplan survey, 38 percent of admissions officers surveyed said applicants’ social networking sites had a negative impact on their admissions evaluation.

This makes sense to me.  If nothing else, colleges would not want to deal with the bad publicity from any case where one of their star students turned out to be a fraud and/or of poor moral character.

Some students try to evade detection.  One trend I’ve observed and read about is high school students using pseudonyms on their Facebook pages, partly to give the slip to snoopers.  For example, ‘Sarah Ann Springer’ might change her name to something like ‘Sarah Sass’.

Colleges that saddle graduates with the most debt (and those that don’t)

From U.S. News & World Report, based on 2010 graduates

Colleges With the Most Student Debt

10. Fordham University – 64% of students graduate with debt averaging $38,151
..9. Stevens Institute of Technology – 70% of students graduate with debt averaging $38,554
..8. Case Western Reserve University – 60% of students graduate with debt averaging $39,236
..7. Widener University – 85% of students graduate with debt averaging $40,386
..6. New York University – 55% of students graduate with debt averaging $41,375
..5. Florida Institute of Technology - 65% of students graduate with debt averaging $41,565
..4. Barry University – 64% of students graduate with debt averaging $42,798
..3. Nova Southeastern University – 76% of students graduate with debt averaging $43,206
..2. Clark Atlanta University – 93% of students graduate with debt averaging $45,227
..1. University of North Dakota – 83% of students graduate with debt averaging $45,369

Fordham offers relatively generous merit aid, but it seems the combination of a high COA (approx. $59,000) and loan-heavy financial aid helps put it on this list.  Barry University is a HBCU.

Colleges With the Least Student Debt

10. Louisiana Tech University – 49% of students graduate with debt averaging $14,039
..9..Rice University – 36% of students graduate with debt averaging $13,944
..8. Brigham Young University – 31% of students graduate with debt averaging $13,354
..7. Texas Tech University – 40% of students graduate with debt averaging $11,502
..6. Lamar University – 63% of students graduate with debt averaging $12,110
..5. California Institute of Technology – 43% of students graduate with debt averaging $10,760
..4. Harvard University – 34% of students graduate with debt averaging $10,102
..3. Yale University – 28% of students graduate with debt averaging $9,254
..2. Sam Houston State University -46% of students graduate with debt averaging $7,602
..1. Princeton University – 24% of students graduate with debt averaging $4,385

With their generous financial aid policies that include middle- to high-income families, it’s not surprising to see the Ivy Leagues well-represented on this list.  Rice combines  relatively low tuition and favorable need/merit aid.

College tuition ‘sugar daddies’

Saddled with piles of student debt and a job-scarce, lackluster economy, current college students and recent graduates are selling themselves to pursue a diploma or pay down their loans. An increasing number, according to the the owners of websites that broker such hook-ups, have taken to the web in search of online suitors or wealthy benefactors who, in exchange for sex, companionship, or both, might help with the bills.

The past few years have taken an especially brutal toll on the plans and expectations of 20-somethings. As unemployment rates tick steadily higher, starting salaries have plummeted. Meanwhile, according to Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a professor of psychology at Clark University, about 85 percent of the class of 2011 will likely move back in with their parents during some period of their post-college years, compared with 40 percent a decade ago.

Besides moving back home, many 20-somethings are beginning their adult lives shouldering substantial amounts of student loan debt. According to Mark Kantrowitz, who publishes the financial aid websites Fastweb.com and Finaid.org, while the average 2011 graduate finished school with about $27,200 in debt, many are straining to pay off significantly greater loans.

Enter the sugar daddy, sugar baby phenomenon….  With the whole process going digital, women passing through a system of higher education that fosters indebtedness are using the anonymity of the web to sell their wares and pay down their college loans.

“Over the past few years, the number of college students using our site has exploded,” says Brandon Wade, the 41-year-old founder of Seeking Arrangement. Of the site’s approximately 800,000 members, Wade estimates that 35 percent are students. “College students are one of the biggest segments of our sugar babies and the numbers are growing all the time.”

Jack is a sugar daddy who says he is “helping” these women.

“Most of these young women have debt from school,” says Jack, who finds most young women also carry an average of $8,000 in credit-card debt. “I guess I like the college girls more because I think of their student debt as good debt. At least it seems like I’m helping them out, like I’m helping them to get a better life.”

Consistent with its reputation of offering loan-heavy financial aid, New York University ranks highest with the number of sugar babies.

At The Huffington Post’s request, Seeking Arrangement listed the top 20 universities attended by sugar babies on the site. They compiled the list according to the number of sugar babies who registered using their .edu email addresses or listed schools’ names on their profiles. New York University tops the list with 498 sugar babies, while UCLA comes in at No. 8 with 253, and Harvard University ranks at No. 9 with 231. The University of California at Berkeley ranks at No. 13 with 193, the University of Southern California ranks at No. 15 with 183, and Tulane University ranks at No. 20 with 163 college sugar babies.

Click on the image to get more details from the interactive image.

Seeking Arrangement: College Students Using ‘Sugar Daddies’ To Pay Off Loan Debt – Huffington Post