Facebook

[shmelke]

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Anyone ever think of facebook as plus? It can, with the correct parameters, act as a tool showing you in the context of your life, outside the classroom or laboratory. I think it is a way to show the adcoms that you A) have a life, and B) have an interesting repertoire of people and activities you are involved with.

Just thought i'd throw that out there 🙂

 

[JJMrK]

If you go on your profile page and look at the box with your friends list, on the top right hand corner there is an edit button. There you can make your friends list private.

I was trying to figure out how to do it just last week. I was looking through settings and all that other stuff -- took awhile to figure out how.

Thanks, that's excellent. 👍 I now have absolutely zero qualms about anything facebook related.

 

[JJMrK]

Actually I think there is a way because I've seen it where you can search for someone and just send them a message but can't gain access to their friends list. So yeah. It is possible.

There is. It's posted in this thread:

If you go on your profile page and look at the box with your friends list, on the top right hand corner there is an edit button. There you can make your friends list private.

I was trying to figure out how to do it just last week. I was looking through settings and all that other stuff -- took awhile to figure out how.

 

[riverjib]

Well, interviewers (if they are interested) can search for you in any public forum. Facebook and MySpace are social forums, not networking sites like LinkedIn, but if your FB profile is public and shows that you are connected to people and your pics/wall posts are respectable, it can work in your favor.

It's definitely not a "strategy" that I'd use, but I'm not taking my FB down during the application cycle. My profile is set to "friends only," but I'll err on the side of caution and make sure that if somebody can search it, there are no pictures of me drunk at 4am. If (on the off-chance) they find me, they'll only see pictures of me climbing or hiking, or hanging out with my family. In the rare instance that my wall posts are laden with profanity or political discussions, I delete them. I like using FB to keep in touch with people, but I'm careful to make sure that I won't make any enemies with my public profile.

lol wat
might as well update your myspace while you're at it

 

[Buzz Me]

Don't forget all your friends' photos in which you're tagged. Those will be linked to your username.

 

[Rogue Synapse]

I will say that a program director for residency said it was common practice to facebook and google the hell out of people to find out if there are any red flags. That said, privacy settings are there for a reason, and who doesn't have something on facebook that they wouldn't want their professional world to see? I left all my facebook stuff up and just turned up the privacy settings for this residency interview season.

 

[Rogue Synapse]

Come to think of it, I wonder if SDN can be used against you... it is anonymous, but it's not that hard to figure out where a person is coming from if you go back and read older posts by them. Of course, that would take way too much time to be a practical screening tool. But still, I wonder sometimes...

 

[7starmantis]

Come to think of it, I wonder if SDN can be used against you... it is anonymous, but it's not that hard to figure out where a person is coming from if you go back and read older posts by them. Of course, that would take way too much time to be a practical screening tool. But still, I wonder sometimes...

Search for the "Do adcoms read SDN" thread. I had conversations with a school about SDN and things posted. They certainly do read SDN. Still, if your not being an idiot I dont think it matters.

 

[loljkttyl]

I would always err on the side of caution. For all the applications I've screened for my med school, I have facebooked and googled them for any red flags...just for kicks. Remember that ad coms are not just deans and doctors but may also include fourth year med students who were in your same exact position just four yrs ago...and know all the ins and outs of sdn 🙂