Kenan-Flagler applicants more likely to be screened with social media at UNC

Applicants to UNC’s business school might have their Facebook profiles browsed by unlikely visitors — admissions officers.

Kaplan Test Prep released a study last week documenting admissions officers’ use of Google and Facebook to evaluate applicants.

The study, which surveyed admissions officers nationwide, found that law schools are more likely than business schools and undergraduate programs to use the Internet to find out more about an applicant, but the inverse is true at UNC.

Many admissions administrators said screening applicants is not a part of the formal process, but that doesn’t mean applicants can’t be screened — especially for business school applications.

The University’s undergraduate admissions office does not use social media in the application process, said Ashley Memory, assistant director of undergraduate admissions.

“We do not use Facebook, Google or any other social media tool as a mechanism to evaluate our applicants,” Memory said.

UNC’s business school screens some of its applicants, but it does not have a formal policy either, said Sherry Wallace, director of MBA admissions for the school.

“An applicant should know anything on the web is subject to our review,” Wallace said. “We sometimes do review applicants’ online presence.”

Michael States, assistant dean for admissions at the UNC School of Law, said they don’t have a formal policy of researching students on the internet, but they don’t rule it out.

“I’ve had individual people do online checking of names,” he said.

According to the Kaplan survey, 41 percent of law school admissions officers have gathered information about applicants from Google searches, and 37 percent have gathered information from Facebook or another social networking site.

This increased scrutiny of law school applicants is mainly due to the intense ethical standards of the law community, said Jeff Thomas, director of pre-law programs at Kaplan.

“The legal community takes ethics among it’s members very seriously,” he said. “So its natural that law schools screen more stringently.”

Only 20 percent of undergraduate admissions officers used Google to search for students, and 24 percent used Facebook, according to the survey.

Among business school admissions officers, 27 percent used Google and 22 percent used Facebook.

Wallace said some interviewers will use social media to find extra information on the applicants they interview and alert admissions officers to their findings.

The expansion of social media has made the screening of applicant’s online profiles easier and more likely, she said.

“As social media has expanded, the chances we will see someone’s footprint has expanded as well.”

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