Adweek: "The trend of college admissions officers visiting the social media profiles of applicants is back on the upswing, according to the latest survey from Kaplan Test Prep. The educational and career-services provider polled nearly 300 college admissions officers and found that 36% of them turn to applicants’ profiles on social platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube to learn more about them, up from 25% last year."
"Kaplan added that since reaching a high of 40% three years ago, the trend had been downward, caused in part by the emergence of newer platforms such as TikTok and Twitch and in part by prominent use of content that is not publicly accessible or disappears after a certain period of time, such as Stories on Snapchat and Instagram. The company said 19% of respondents who view applicants’ social media profiles do so 'often,' up from 11% in Kaplan’s 2015 survey."
"Kaplan said 59% of admissions officers believe visiting applicants’ social media profiles is “fair game,” up slightly from 57% last year, while 41% called it 'an invasion of privacy that shouldn’t be done.' A separate survey found that 70% of applicants were OK with their profiles being viewed by admissions officers. Finally, the results of those profile viewings were mixed, as Kaplan said 38% of respondents were impacted positively by what they saw, while 32% were impacted negatively."