Facebook and Medical Schools

[Premedapplicant]

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Hey guys

So does anyone know if med schools check our facebooks? I mean if you have everything set to private they can still find your picture, and name at the very least...

Thoughts? Suggestions? Experiences?

 

[4ksibe]

Hey guys

So does anyone know if med schools check our facebooks? I mean if you have everything set to private they can still find your picture, and name at the very least...

Thoughts? Suggestions? Experiences?

an adcomm told me they do if they feel like it. if everything is private they might only see your name. you can opt not to appear on search too. but hopefully they dont know someone who is friends with you lol
To be on the safe side, i closed mine till i got accepted (got some pretty not polite not sane friends there so ya)

 

[mitchlucker]

I hope so, I think they'd be impressed by my shotgunning beers pictures and how well I can MS Paint photoshop my buddies over gay porn scenes.

 

[eli20]

I doubt they are going to go out of their way to stalk you. They have thousands of applicants. That being said, don't make it easy for them to do so 🙂

Just put it on private so that only friends can see information, hide yourself from searches and above all - make good decisions about what you put online. You can't undo something once it has been on the internet.

 

[wlee43]

change you facebook name slightly. then they can't find you ever

 

[NickNaylor]

I kept my Facebook up. My SDN account is linked to my MDApps, which has enough information to identify me personally. Presumably an adcom could look up every single thing I've written on SDN, which would be a bad thing because I've written some pretty ridiculous ****. Despite all that, nothing bad has happened.

People are paranoid. Do you really think adcoms have the time to check and see if you have a SDN or MDApps account? Even if they only check those that interview, that's a ton of people for a usually very small admissions staff to deal with. Since Facebook is so "universal" you might run a little more risk, but the same thing applies. And privacy settings can prevent anyone from looking at it.

 

[WingedOx]

change you facebook name slightly. then they can't find you ever

false. people in my class have gone around changing their names when applying to residency, and sadly it's a waste of time. Search engines will find you if your name has EVER been "correct" in the past on facebook or Twitter. Just remember that nothing you post online is ever truly private, no matter what your settings.

as for if med schools look at your facebook, I can't confirm what ADCOMS do but they absolutely do check on their current students. A student was kicked out of Ohio State the year before I applied for something posted on his blog. A girl at my school was publicly scolded for posting a pic in her profile of her family in the anatomy lab posing around a cadaver with her ane each of her parents holding an organ... not kidding on that one

 

[HumbleMD]

Adcoms don't have a standard facebook check, but it doesn't stop individual interviewers from looking at facebook.
1) You should having embarrassing photos posted on facebook anyways.
2) Application season might be the right time to unhook from facebook (you can termporarily turn off your account).

I certainly will be during Residency Application season.

 

[eli20]

A girl at my school was publicly scolded for posting a pic in her profile of her family in the anatomy lab posing around a cadaver with her ane each of her parents holding an organ... not kidding on that one

Good. She probably should have experienced worse.

 

[wanderer]

I've heard of some adcoms reading stuff on SDN (at interview days), but as long as it's not overly negative/misleading or a personal attack why should they care? They have more important things to deal with.

 

[333926]

...

 

[WingedOx]

The simplest solution is just to up your privacy on everything(only friends can see anything) and make yourself not searchable and you've pretty much covered all bases.

However, I've been IDed by a interviewer based on my SDN account basically because I announced the day I would be there. Still got accepted even though I admittedly came off as cocky based on my post in that school-specific thread(deleted that post though).

yeah, careful what you post in here as well. I was able to ID one poster a few years back who was acting like a d-bag on here. Turns out we have mutual facebook friends. 🙄

 

[OGMD]

]I've heard of some adcoms reading stuff on SDN (at interview days)[/B], but as long as it's not overly negative/misleading or a personal attack why should they care? They have more important things to deal with.

Last year, one interviewer (who said he/she frequents SDN often) told me a story about how someone who had been waitlisted at this school was spreading false information on SDN. They were able to find out who this person was through some identifying information and reject them.

 

[333926]

...

 

[wanderer]

Last year, one interviewer (who said he/she frequents SDN often) told me a story about how someone who had been waitlisted at this school was spreading false information on SDN. They were able to find out who this person was through some identifying information and reject them.

Was it deliberate, or was the false information based on hearsay?

I know some of the misinformation on the internet/SDN really bothers some adcoms. I even interviewed with the dean at a school who mentioned some of the specific misinformation on SDN a few times, though it didn't seem like he would hold it against an applicant for spreading it unless it was deliberate.

 

[chman]

I don't know what you guys do on facebook, but for me, I'm friends with my sisters, dad, etc, and that really stops me from doing anything too outlandish. They could check all they want. They might even find out I'm a person.

 

[bucks2010]

I guess the takeaway here is that adcoms sometimes use Facebook, residency PD's use Facebook, and as future professionals our colleagues will use Facebook, so it's probably a good idea to keep tabs on what you make available online, even to friends. Damaging photos could quite possibly come back to hurt one's professional reputation years later.

 

[n3xa]

I guess the takeaway here is that adcoms sometimes use Facebook, residency PD's use Facebook, and as future professionals our colleagues will use Facebook, so it's probably a good idea to keep tabs on what you make available online, even to friends. Damaging photos could quite possibly come back to hurt one's professional reputation years later.

Oh, and it has.

A friend of mine (was an MS-1 at the time) had some issues with fellow classmates and professors in regards to some of her photos on fb. I believe the photo settings were at "friends of friends," as my friends were able to access her photos.

The only reason why the professors knew anything about these photos was because the students mentioned it to them.

And when I interviewed for graduate school back in 2006, one grad student told me right off the bat that he googled my name and then proceeded to ask me questions about certain things he found online. It was academic stuff, but still... I was a bit thrown off.