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Archive for: College Admissions Facebook

Predicting College Admission


According to the University of Richmond Collegian, there is a new Facebook application that projects the likelihood of whether or not you will be accepted by specific colleges based on the data that you input. The application, known as AdmissionSplash, factors in GPA, SATs, extracurriculars, and various other criteria. While we at The Ivy Coach in no way endorse this application, it does raise some interesting questions.

In the article by Kaylin Politzer, “[Allison] Carr, an honors student on the AP track, said the University of Virginia was currently her top college choice, but she wasn’t sure what her probability of being accepted would be. Carr said she used the AdmissionSplash application to test her chances of getting into the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, the University of Richmond and Elon University.

‘I was surprised to see my chances were only fair for getting into UVA but good for getting into UNC,’ she said. ‘I would think my chances for getting into an in-state school would be easier than one out of state.’ Although she said she wasn’t sure how much she would trust AdmissionSplash’s predictions, Carr said she would continue to use the application and other facets of the CampusSplash network during her college search.”

At The Ivy Coach, we recognize that an application like this that can instantly project your chances of admission as “good” or “fair” can be a whole lot of fun. After all, it takes a few months for college admissions counselors to decide the admissions fate of applicants. This is fast. It’s gratifying (especially if your chances are “good” or “great”). It’s immediate returns. But this application is severely flawed.

Do colleges crunch the numbers on the applicants before they read essays and check out extracurriculars? Often times…yes, this is the case. But the other parts of the application matter, too. A computer program cannot read a personal story within the essay and activities and a computer program cannot advocate for a student. What if an applicant’s father donated 10 million dollars to the school’s athletics department? Is there a button for that, too?

Sure, we believe in number crunching. Check out our blog post on grades and college success and how it all ties into the “New York Times” bestseller “Moneyball” by Michael Lewis. But we have serious doubts about this application. Fun? Yes. A good idea? You bet. An accurate tool to project your chances of admission to highly competitive universities? Not so much.

Check out the article in the Richmond University Collegian.

Social Media and College Admissions


Social media is a hot topic in college admissions. The question so many students and parents often pose is: Do college admissions counselors check the Facebook pages of their applicants? The short answer is…no. College admissions counselors don’t have the time to peruse every applicant’s Facebook page. In a word, it’s impractical. But does that mean you should have content on your Facebook page or on other social media outlets that you wouldn’t want an admissions counselor to see? Of course not!

Just because admissions counselors don’t check every applicant’s Facebook page doesn’t mean they won’t check your Facebook page. What if you’re a borderline candidate whose application has gone to committee? And just because admissions counselors tend not to check your Facebook page, that may not be the case for alumni interviewers.

Alumni interviewers quite frequently take a look at your Facebook page either before the interview when they are trying to figure out how to recognize you at a crowded Starbucks, or after the interview when they are completing their evaluation. Since alumni only interview a certain number of students, they want to be able to share information that can be helpful to the admissions office in formulating a decision. Alumni interviewers thus often have the time and the motivation to check your Facebook page.

In an article this week in “The Seattle Times” linked below, the author writes about ways to use social media to your competitive advantage in the college admissions process. We agree — there are indeed ways to market your art portfolio or accomplishments on the viola online for college admissions counselors. There are ways to carefully use the Internet to help your case for admission. But by keeping your privacy preferences open to the public or by having it up there at all, you run the risk of unintentionally sharing information with people who will have an influence on your admissions decisions. Is it worth the risk?

Read our Newsletter on Using Social Networking Sites to Your Advantage.

Read our blogs on College Social Media Recruitment, and Social Networking in College Admission.

Check out the article in “The Seattle Times” here.