Article of The Week

In a recent article I read, there was a girl that didn't get accepted into the college that she wanted to go to because of the various Tweets that she had posted. The person who wrote the article then decided to interview various colleges and ask them if they looked through their applicant's Facebook accounts and Twitter posts to better decide if they wanted that person representing their college. Some said that they did look through their applicant's online profiles and some said that they didn't have time to check nor was it fair for the applicant because of the possibility of fake profiles.

Personally, I think it could be both a good thing and a bad thing. Looking through someone's Facebook or Twitter might help them better judge who should be in their colleges, but it can also be unfair due to the fact that online, you can be anyone you want to be. So let's say I Google someone's name to try to find their Facebook or Twitter, but the people who come up aren't even the actual person I'm searching for. Or maybe someone who dislikes them made a fake profile of them just to bully them. That makes it unfair for the applicant. It's also unfair because some people delete previous posts and pictures that make them look bad, therefore false advertizing themselves and making themselves look good when they're really not.
The whole thing is extremely unfair for the applicant, even if it may make the process go by faster or make it easier to decide who should enter their colleges. A college shouldn't judge a person just by simply Googling their name and looking through their Facebooks or Twitters because there's so much that is faulty about using that tactic to decide who gets into their college or not.