An article today in the Wall Street Journal reports on the results of a survey submitted to admissions officers of 500 highly selective colleges. The survey asked if admissions officers looked at social networking sites to help them evaluate applicants. 10% of respondents said they did look at sites such as Facebook and 38% of those said that this negatively impacted their views of the applicant.While a similar survey has not been sent to medical school and residency admissions officers (as far as I know), these results are intriguing. It is best to keep your Facebook and MySpace pages clean. Assume that admissions officers are looking. To be safe, post photos that you would use on your application and only write about things that you would be comfortable discussing on interviews. Also be sure to use privacy settings so posts can't be viewed by the general public.
Along the same lines, make sure you have a respectable email address since most communications with schools and program directors are done via email.
This article is available free online for 7 days: Click Here to read the article.
Visit: www.MedEdits.com (We also edit Facebook pages!)
Posts
