According to a 2012 survey of university admissions counselors by
Kaplan, 27% of admissions counselors Google prospective candidates and 26% look up students on Facebook. Most importantly, 35% “said that when checking up on a student’s online presence, they found something that negatively impacted an applicant’s chances of getting in”. These numbers will only grow as social media becomes the new standard for vetting. In a
May 31st article on Buzzfeed, university admissions track student created social media content before they offered admission. Buzzfeed interviewed an admissions councilor in the northeast US to discuss their universities policies regrading online identities of students.