do med schools really look at your facebook?

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During the admissions process, do they actually look up your profile on facebook, and look through its contents to get a better feel for who they are potentially accepting into their program?
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Yes. I have heard multiple admissions people say that they routinely do this. Better delete that red solo cup profile pic...
 
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Yes why wouldn't they? Its an easy and free way to find out more about who you really are. I know I would do it if I were an adcom
 
Just change your privacy settings. I think I have mine set such that people whom I haven't friended can only see my cover photo, my profile picture, and my networks. It takes about 2 minutes to change and you won't have to worry about it again.
 
This is why I use a fake facebook and send my facebook with my real first and last name to employers.
 
Twitter also. Google yourself and make sure anything you don't want other people to see isn't there. Best thing to do is to set everything to the highest level privacy possible.
 
Just googled myself & my linkedin popped up :D
 
Just make sure your Facebook/Twitter are super private. I think the only thing you can see on mine is my current profile picture.
 
Just untag any picture of you that you wouldn't want your grandma to see. Then maximize your privacy settings. Delete any social networking profiles that you don't use (I had a myspace account from the dark ages that I deleted).
 
why don't people want to reveal who they really are? what could possibly be so incriminating about your facebook page?
 
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Richard Dawkins said:
why don't people want to reveal who they really are? what could possibly be so incriminating about your facebook page?
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I go to a school that has had a drag show (for charity) every year for the past few decades. But of course, when people see the photos, they don't know that it's for charity. They just see the raunch.

So yeah. Privacy.
 
I recently started cleaning up my facebook account by deleting all the pages that I used to like :p
 
What if you like a school's official website on facebook? Do you think that allows them to see your otherwise private page?
 
MuAgonist said:
What if you like a school's official website on facebook? Do you think that allows them to see your otherwise private page?
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No, they won't be able to see anything if your profile is private.
 
Get over yourselves adcoms don't have time to do this. Med students who might have time don't care.
 
UrshumMurshum said:
Get over yourselves adcoms don't have time to do this. Med students who might have time don't care.
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Orlly? They actually do. The further your application progresses, the more scrutiny your application will have to endure. There is certainly enough time to e-stalk applicants right before extending acceptances, if not earlier in the process.

Sent from my phone
 
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Privacy settings > how you connect > edit settings > set everything to friends only. Also set default privacy to friends only.

No way anyone who's not your friend can see anything about you besides your profile picture.
 
Richard Dawkins said:
why don't people want to reveal who they really are? what could possibly be so incriminating about your facebook page?
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People do really dumb stuff. Their idea is not to reveal the discrepancies between their personal and professional life.
 
probably deleting mine when I start getting secondaries. Partly for adcoms but mostly so I can get some stuff done.

Also YOLO
 
Dude Facebook is generally okay, but the timeline is SUPER creepy. Adcoms (or others...) can just access any part of college history pretty easily. I'm really thinking about dumping Big Brother Facebook.
 
UrshumMurshum said:
Get over yourselves adcoms don't have time to do this. Med students who might have time don't care.
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I will occasionally look up an applicant on Facebook. However I have yet to actually be able to look at an applicant's profile. People seem to have gained some smarts.
 
This begs another obvious question- do adcoms look at SDN and identify people?
 
jhuskp said:
This begs another obvious question- do adcoms look at SDN and identify people?
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We have a person in the admissions office/on the adcom in charge of "social media." He does monitor the school-specific SDN thread(s), but it's more to address problems, concerns, etc. than to try and identify who you are. Many schools DO monitor SDN threads despite what they may say. Depending on how much information you provide, it wouldn't be hard at all to identify who a user is. Your undergrad and exact GPA/MCAT are in many cases enough to out you.
 
NickNaylor said:
I will occasionally look up an applicant on Facebook. However I have yet to actually be able to look at an applicant's profile. People seem to have gained some smarts.
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Look at what you've become, NickNaylor. :(
 
Richard Dawkins said:
why don't people want to reveal who they really are? what could possibly be so incriminating about your facebook page?
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It's called privacy, the details of which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights. It's not about whether or not there is something incriminating. Also, people make mistakes and take time to mature.
 
Do what i'm going to do and create 2 facebook accounts, one fully public and one fully private. (When the adcoms search for you, your public one should come up. Disable searching the private one ) The public one can talk about all your accomplishments, like stuff like mozart and einstein and talk about science and stuff. And only friend people on the pre-med society, engineering clubs etc. And the private one can be your regular life.
 
kpcrew said:
It's called privacy, the details of which are enumerated in the Bill of Rights. It's not about whether or not there is something incriminating. Also, people make mistakes and take time to mature.
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The details are not enumerated in the Bill of Rights, they are at best implied. And to think you can put something on THE INTERNET and expect it to be protected by the constitution is about the most ridiculous thing I've heard (today). Thanks for the giggle.
 
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circulus vitios said:
Look at what you've become, NickNaylor. :(
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Haha, I do it more out of curiousity. ;) Unless there was something truly questionable on there ("oh, that's nice, this guy is banging a hooker while snorting a line of coke and beating some homeless guy") it wouldn't matter either way. Personally I don't care if you have pictures of yourself at some kegger - hell that's the main EC of medical school it seems.
 
NickNaylor said:
Haha, I do it more out of curiousity. ;) Unless there was something truly questionable on there ("oh, that's nice, this guy is banging a hooker while snorting a line of coke and beating some homeless guy") it wouldn't matter either way. Personally I don't care if you have pictures of yourself at some kegger - hell that's the main EC of medical school it seems.
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In fact, it might be seen as a positive if the med student sees it.

Awesome, got another person to party with!
 
PreMedOrDead said:
In fact, it might be seen as a positive if the med student sees it.

Awesome, got another person to party with!
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Unless they're someone who engaged in the Emory beer pong table thread, in which case the med student would see it as bringing shame to your family, friends, and alma mater. After spending some time on sdn, not in a million years would I want a medical student to look at my fb during admissions.
 
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JABWS said:
Unless they're someone who engaged in the Emory beer pong table thread, in which case the med student would see it as bringing shame to your family, friends, and alma mater. After spending some time on sdn, not in a million years would I want a medical student to look at my fb during admissions.
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Privacy -> Friends only.

Don't give out your alma mater on SDN.

Don't give out your exact GPA/MCAT on SDN.

Hell, don't even give your state of origin/sex on SDN if you don't want.

Problem solved.
 
PreMedOrDead said:
Privacy -> Friends only.

Don't give out your alma mater on SDN.

Don't give out your exact GPA/MCAT on SDN.

Hell, don't even give your state of origin/sex on SDN if you don't want.

Problem solved.
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:ninja:

or just don't post anything on the internet that you wouldn't mind sharing with the world - including adcoms.
 
scene said:
This is why I use a fake facebook and send my facebook with my real first and last name to employers.
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:laugh: That's quality.

JABWS said:
Unless they're someone who engaged in the Emory beer pong table thread, in which case the med student would see it as bringing shame to your family, friends, and alma mater. After spending some time on sdn, not in a million years would I want a medical student to look at my fb during admissions.
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I actually had no problem with the table, but the kid who posted it on FB is a grade-A *****. When would that ever seem like a good idea?
 
Praefectus said:
When would that ever seem like a good idea?
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Just a year or two ago at BCM, students decided that it would be a good idea to complain about their uninsured patients using a musical skit the school's prom equivalent. I wouldn't say it was ridiculously offensive, but some of it was pretty questionable. Not only did that somehow get performed, but people recorded it and put it on YouTube. I tried to find it but couldn't.

The point: people are pretty stupid at times.
 
Praefectus said:
I actually had no problem with the table, but the kid who posted it on FB is a grade-A *****. When would that ever seem like a good idea?
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I don't want to rehash that argument. My point is we all see things differently. While I find absolutely nothing wrong with the OP's pic, there were many that did, and I would hate to have that same level of scrutiny come down on my fb page. Just like we dress, act, and speak differently with our friends than we would in an interview, we also represent ourselves differently in an application as compared to something like fb. This doesn't mean we are fake or putting on a false front to the adcoms, there's simply times when one should be professional and others where it is perfectly acceptable to let loose and have a little fun. Fb tends to be a portrayal of the latter, which is why I wouldn't want it to be a deciding factor in the admissions process.

Obviously it's not that difficult to adjust a few privacy settings to make sure that doesn't happen.
 
its harder to look people up on Twitter than fb i imagine. searching for people on twitter is a lot harder than it is for fb
 
SourD21 said:
its harder to look people up on Twitter than fb i imagine. searching for people on twitter is a lot harder than it is for fb
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You said the same thing twice.
 
Verum said:
You said the same thing twice.
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lol sorry im typing from my iphone i cant rly see what i write hahahahaha. but yeah on twitter u arent associated with any school networks or something which prly makes it difficult for ADCOMs to find u. personally i dont touch my fb...but if they found my twitter tho then i'd be a little worried :)
 
So what if there's a guy who has my same exact name (which is fairly rare) and looks very similar to me? I don't really like the guy after browsing his profile that is not set to private. :lame:
 
TheShaker said:
So what if there's a guy who has my same exact name (which is fairly rare) and looks very similar to me? I don't really like the guy after browsing his profile that is not set to private. :lame:
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I call into question the closeness of appearance.
 
I just changed my fb privacy settings after reading this thread.
 
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