Facebook and admissions

Discover Your Odds of Getting into Medical School
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angryazn88

angryazn88

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Hey guys, I hope I'm not the only one thats paranoid about the possibility that our facebook will affect our chances of being interviewed/accepted into a med school. Do you think they stalk us??
 
Just set your privacy settings to "friends only", and make sure your profile picture isn't you doing something that would be frowned against.

Or delete your facebook 🙂
 
also make sure you uncheck the search engine authorization thing...forgot where you turn this off (privacy settings?)
 
Yeah I was paranoid about it. Once I sent out my application I made sure I had tight privacy settings and my picture was something appropriate (aka not a picture of me skiing shirtless).
 
I never had this problem. I'm not dumb enough to put anything out in the public that I am uncomfortable with the public seeing. Common sense, really.
 
Do you think admission commitee have too much extra time to look for facebook pages?
dont get so much worried on non-issues.
I am pretty sure no one cares what do you write on your facebook and morever any one can create any facebook page.
take it easy man..
 
I think that this is a valid concern. The pre-med advisor at my school (who used to be on the admissions committee at multiple schools) just sent an email out saying to be aware that our facebook pages were fair game for adcoms. Like previous people have posted, just be aware what you have on there and the privacy settings.
 
Tin Man said:
I never had this problem. I'm not dumb enough to put anything out in the public that I am uncomfortable with the public seeing. Common sense, really.
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Yeah, but you can't control messages people post on your page. Say someone posts, "Dude, you were sooooo drunk last weekend when you danced on the table in you underwear!"

Sure you can delete it but what if someone reads that before you get to it? I ended up inactivating/deleting my social networking accounts because I am paranoid. But at least make sure to set your privacy settings to friends only.
 
FuturePittMed said:
Yeah, but you can't control messages people post on your page. Say someone posts, "Dude, you were sooooo drunk last weekend when you danced on the table in you underwear!"

Sure you can delete it but what if someone reads that before you get to it? I ended up inactivating/deleting my social networking accounts because I am paranoid. But at least make sure to set your privacy settings to friends only.
Click to expand...

You can control it actually. When someone finds me on facebook, all the can see is my profile pic (which is now appropriate lol), my hometown, and country. And i disabled the search option so when I get googled, no one can find me. Its not too bad to do this, but I definitely had to google it to figure out how to disable this option
 
This is a totally valid concern. I mean, after I applied, an admissions director found my facebook profile and invited me to a group. I did not disable the searh engine but you can't look at my pics (other than my profile pic) or see any interesting info.
 
FuturePittMed said:
Yeah, but you can't control messages people post on your page. Say someone posts, "Dude, you were sooooo drunk last weekend when you danced on the table in you underwear!"

Sure you can delete it but what if someone reads that before you get to it? I ended up inactivating/deleting my social networking accounts because I am paranoid. But at least make sure to set your privacy settings to friends only.
Click to expand...

Of course, I've never had the problem of getting drunk enough to dance on the table naked, either. And if I did, I certainly don't keep company who is stupid enough to talk about it and think that they'll live through the night. 🙂

Personally, I have a very clean Facebook page, and I leave it open (except for my contact info). If the adcom's want to look at my page, they are more than welcome to do so and will see I have nothing to hide. In fact, they're likely to see the numerous essays I've written over ethics, some clean-cut pictures of me in a dashing uniform, and other such pieces of propaganda advancing the cause of the Tin Man. Meanwhile, they'll try to access your super-protected pages and simply have to wonder what y'all are hiding. 😛
 
Tin Man said:
Of course, I've never had the problem of getting drunk enough to dance on the table naked, either. And if I did, I certainly don't keep company who is stupid enough to talk about it and think that they'll live through the night. 🙂

Personally, I have a very clean Facebook page, and I leave it open (except for my contact info). If the adcom's want to look at my page, they are more than welcome to do so and will see I have nothing to hide. In fact, they're likely to see the numerous essays I've written over ethics, some clean-cut pictures of me in a dashing uniform, and other such pieces of propaganda advancing the cause of the Tin Man. Meanwhile, they'll try to access your super-protected pages and simply have to wonder what y'all are hiding. 😛
Click to expand...


At least our pages will have "heart", Tin Man. 😉
 
Silly kids, worrying about facebook 🙂

You wonder why they ask for your email address? It's for pipl 🙂
 
I put mine to the 'faceless robot' guy during application season and had my privacy settings on MI-6 level.
 
Who is sitting on your Facebook?
 
my good friend who went to ohio state university MD and graduated there in 2009 had a fellow student friend who was also a med student there. Anyway, i guess he had some sort of racist joke or something on his myspace page and although i don't know the whole story, he was expelled because of it. He was in his second year there and with all that debt and my friend said that he will never get in anywhere else because its on his record or whatever so yes you do have to watch what you put on your facebook even if its "just a joke"
 
The dean of our medical school has had several meetings with our class about facebook. Someone posted something about a bar crawl, and he knew all about it. He even went on to say that he knows off applicants being rejected to a residency program based off of FB. So either set your settings to private or delete your account. The theme they have hammered into us is that you are going to be a Medical Professional, and held to a higher standard. So if you don't want to be judged by admissions by what you do in your free time, don't make your personal life open to the public. I have had friends loose jobs because of twitter and facebook. One friend, had a co-worker who was friends with his boss, and the person called in a sick day to go to a baseball game. The status update showed up on the co-worker's newsfeed, and his manager saw it. Also, there are issue regarding patient confidentiality as well. People have been known to violate HIPAA by posting something about a patient from their rotations. So they have reasons for checking.
 
It's pretty beneficial to just avoid not being an idiot on the internet. The good news is that if you have in the past, there's a lot you can delete. I know a hard delete for all of it would be challenging, but it's not like your medical superiors will be hiring private detectives to scope out the cyber-world for you anytime soon.

Besides, a lot of people aren't as funny on the internet as they think they are anyway. Lamebook.com is devoted to tons of captions of guys in college who still think the height of wit and humor is telling women to go make sandwiches.
 
I would say it's more of a concern once you actually get into school... Be conservative about what goes onto your page and set your privacy settings to MI-6 level 😛
 
slarveson said:
my good friend who went to ohio state university MD and graduated there in 2009 had a fellow student friend who was also a med student there. Anyway, i guess he had some sort of racist joke or something on his myspace page and although i don't know the whole story, he was expelled because of it. He was in his second year there and with all that debt and my friend said that he will never get in anywhere else because its on his record or whatever so yes you do have to watch what you put on your facebook even if its "just a joke"
Click to expand...

Some reason I suspect there is more to that story.

Anyway, we've been given lectures about this stuff before. They told us to remove pretty much anything that can identify us or our personal beliefs. Personally, I'm not sure I'd WANT to be at a program that decided not to choose me if they found out I was a different political affiliation, gay, or whatever else. I've had a person on here before contact me through facebook about a comment I made and how it was unprofessional. I made sure to note that contacting me through facebook was also unprofessional when he could've just messaged me on the site.

I'm not sure what to think of some of this stuff. I feel that most program directors and admissions people are busy enough as is without checking each applicant's social networking page. That being said, I also don't think you should post stupid crap on it and just have it set to be viewable by only your friends. Maybe untag photos.
 
I don't have a fb so I'm curious, if you don't provide your email for the fb is under how can they find you? I mean if you were to search a name like "John smith" you'll get like a million people with that name. So how would they know if you are that exact person? Assuming they never saw you before the interview and all.
 
Most people post pictures and lots of identifiable information in facebook. And yes, I do know plenty of adcoms and PDs for residency do look through facebook.
 
Mohammed1989 said:
I don't have a fb so I'm curious, if you don't provide your email for the fb is under how can they find you? I mean if you were to search a name like "John smith" you'll get like a million people with that name. So how would they know if you are that exact person? Assuming they never saw you before the interview and all.
Click to expand...

You can narrow down the search results by location and also a lot of people have less common names than John Smith.
 
ShyRem said:
And yes, I do know plenty of adcoms and PDs for residency do look through facebook.
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I personally find this so hard to believe! Not to sound crass, but most of the adcoms and PDs I know are over 50 years old and seem like the type of people who would want NOTHING to do with facebook whatsoever.
 
taylormade2006 said:
You can narrow down the search results by location and also a lot of people have less common names than John Smith.
Click to expand...

O gotcha, well if I ever decide to make one my name is real common. Lol username says it all.
 
Digging this one out of last year's pile, because I think it's a relevant reminder at this time of the year. Any idea where to disable your appearance on a search?
 
I bet adcoms are frustrated that google came out with Google plus.

+1 to that, amiright?
 
Jeeze kids, chill out. I just asked our Dean of Admissions to comment on this question, and he wrote: "It’s paranoid! Neither I, nor any of my wide circle of colleagues in comparable positions at other schools, does this".

angryazn88 said:
Hey guys, I hope I'm not the only one thats paranoid about the possibility that our facebook will affect our chances of being interviewed/accepted into a med school. Do you think they stalk us??
Click to expand...
 
Haha... That's funny, I was JUST yelled at by a friend for this, that IT WILL COST ME MY FUTURE to post anything slightly non-PC on MY Fb page... it isn't YOUR page that is the problem, set ALL of your info to private/friends only and make sure you aren't searchable (this is under privacy)... the problem comes in when you post on other people's stuff, open group pages, friends with open pages, etc... Then your name can come up, HOWEVER, with out any identifying information, it is VERY risky for anyone to use this info against you, what if they are looking at the wrong John K. Smith? ... As such, many places won't use it for fear of discrimination or illegal invasion of privacy lawsuits...
 
Goro said:
Jeeze kids, chill out. I just asked our Dean of Admissions to comment on this question, and he wrote: "It’s paranoid! Neither I, nor any of my wide circle of colleagues in comparable positions at other schools, does this".
Click to expand...

I asked the admissions directors at 4 medical schools (MD) and three said they do google applicants. Usually they only googe/FB those they are interested in inviting for an interview, though.
 
A friend of mine ended up in a bit of heat thanks to her med school classmates + higher-ups and her massive cleavage shots on facespace.

IBttiwwop
 
You're not being elected president, just being considered for med school.
 
Just to add some fuel to the fire, I've heard some admins say that they check these forums too.
 
scummie said:
Just to add some fuel to the fire, I've heard some admins say that they check these forums too.
Click to expand...

I heard some admins say they tap into military satellites and watch us while we sleep.
 
Ceilingcat.png
 
I feel the adcoms that fritter away their day on facebook are basically doing this on your dime without much regard for their actual duties, though I suppose in their eyes your online activities are a direct reflection of your true self. You're better off not being accepted into a program where the administration spends their day playing on facebook rather than ensuring your education has all of the resources available to it with medicine's modernization. It's a great hypocrisy that those in power cannot distinguish their own actions as unprofessional. Be smart and don't post anything too incriminating or anything that requires a sense of humor. I'm sure adcoms view facebook through the lens of a tabloid journalist. But at least they aren't hacking into phones.
 
Last edited:
There are plenty of adcoms that do look through facebook. And more than one med student has not been ranked due to something on their facebook page. I know of two residents where jobs were not offered due to "issues" on their facebook pages.

You are desirous of entering a professional world. Know that you will be scrutinized by many. Not scrutinized by some, but definitely scrutinized more than not. Don't think your facebook pages showing you boozing, naked, or being otherwise totally stupid will be unnoticed by everyone except your bestest bosom buddies.

In other words, if there is anything on your facebook that you wouldn't want your mother to see or read, then you probably should remove it.
 
creativename said:
I feel the adcoms that fritter away their day on facebook are basically doing this on your dime without much regard for their actual duties, though I suppose in their eyes your online activities are a direct reflection of your true self. You're better off not being accepted into a program where the administration spends their day playing on facebook rather than ensuring your education has all of the resources available to it with medicine's modernization. It's a great hypocrisy that those in power cannot distinguish their own actions as unprofessional.
Click to expand...

I highly doubt there are admins out there that spend hours on facebook. I do think they do what we do--facebook stalk. "Hey, we might be ranking student X, let's see what their facebook is like." Same way we meet someone and wonder what they're like. It's a digital world dude and we all live in it.
 
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