On a Saturday morning, Lila Wimbish ’26 wakes up, grabs her phone and opens her most used app, Instagram. But amid the usual posts, she also sees pictures of students holding red cups with glass bottles filled with alcohol directly behind them. A sense of uncertainty makes her pause and close out of the app. She is left with a feeling of secondhand embarrassment at the recklessness of their actions. Despite incidents like this, Wimbish said she enjoys posting on her social media accounts yet is aware of the responsibility it comes with.
“As someone who uses social media a lot across all platforms, I love to post and have fun on the apps,” Wimbish said. “However, I understand the importance of being careful, as the internet is forever, and one mistake can jeopardize your future at a school or getting a job.”
A 2023 survey by Kaplan Test Prep showed that 67% of college admissions officers believe looking into applicants’ social media activity is “fair game”; however, 33% view it as an invasion of privacy.
Upper School Dean Sarah Miller said because of the number of applicants at highly selective schools, admissions officers are limited in how much time they can spend looking at an applicant’s digital presence.
“Making their way through the entirety of a Common Application, teacher recommendations and counselor recommendations, personal statements, supplemental essays, transcripts, standardized tests and AP scores might add up to 15 to 20 minutes [and] is no small task,” said Miller. “For most admission officers and colleges, there simply isn’t the time to find and perhaps draw conclusions about you based on your social media presence.”
Although the admissions process is limited in time, Miller said she has heard instances where a student’s online activity led to a rejection from a college.
“I have heard of stories where students have left a social media platform open and had photos or comments that were clearly disparaging, which led an admissions officer to believe that they may not be strong community members or have a positive influence on their peer group,” Miller said. “It’s important to keep in mind, especially at the colleges where there are many applicants and few offers of admission to be awarded, those few spots are so coveted admission officers are tasked with finding individuals who will strengthen communities, exhibit empathy, sound judgment and a genuine respect for all individuals.”
Online presentation is especially important for athletes looking to be recruited, according to the National College Scouting Association. At Marquette University, a lacrosse recruit lost their scholarship because they made offensive comments about George Floyd’s death. A Cornell football recruit had his admission revoked after a Snapchat post showing him using a racist slur went viral, according to The New York Times.
Barron Linnekens ’26, who plays varsity basketball, said maintaining a strong online image is important because it is a coach’s first impression of a player.
“Your social media presence can be both a great thing and a terrible thing as far as college recruiting goes,” Linnekens said. “Colleges look at your social media long before they ever reach out to you to see the kind of person you are. I always make sure that the things I post stay true to my values and accurately represent me not only as an athlete but also a person as a whole.”
Maya Stillwell ’26, who plays varsity volleyball and recently committed to Northwestern University, said college coaches looked at her social media throughout her recruitment.
“A lot of college coaches “followed my Instagram during the recruiting process,” Stillwell said. “Everything I posted was a reflection of me as a person and could’ve affected their view of me when they looked for someone to add to their team roster. I don’t know if posting highlights and accolades on Instagram is a make or break for the recruiting process, but I know that it can definitely help getting coaches to notice you.”
Lauryn Lewis ’26, another volleyball player who committed to the University of Pennsylvania, said she was also mindful of what she put on social media during her recruitment.
“Coaches often rely on your social media to get a glimpse of the type of person you are aside from just being an athlete,” Lewis said. “During my recruiting process, I heavily considered how I put myself out there as a person because I’m not only representing myself but the people around me as well. The image that I put on myself reflects on the important aspects of my life such as my school, club and my family.”
Upper School Dean Jamie Chan said she advises students to be careful and aware of what they choose to put online about themselves and to consider that once information is posted on the internet, it is permanent.
“In general, students should always be mindful of what they decide to post on social media platforms because they never know who will be looking or who will stumble across their information,” Chan said. “Future employers, frenemies and college admission officers could use the info for positive or negative reasons. It’s harder to be a teenager nowadays than it was when I was a teenager because social media is everywhere, and even the smallest of mistakes could end up on the internet and follow someone for a long time.”
In one case, ten prospective Harvard students had their acceptances rescinded after sharing sexually explicit and racist memes in a private Facebook group in 2017, according to The Harvard Crimson. There were also several instances of colleges revoking admissions due to offensive social media activity, including a high school honors student whose admission was revoked by the University of Florida for a racist Instagram post and a 2019 case where Harvard revoked an incoming student’s admission after two-year-old screenshots showed him repeatedly using the N-word, according to The New York Times.
The addition of artificial intelligence adds a layer of uncertainty to an individual’s digital footprint because of its ability to manipulate images.
In February, five eighth grade students were expelled at Beverly Vista Middle School for using the faces of sixteen of their peers to generate nude pictures using AI and share them through messaging apps, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Milo Messinger ’25 said using technology to fabricate information about others is not a new development; however, the advancements of AI make it much easier to manufacture photos and videos.
“Generating pictures, videos and recordings of people has been a problem for quite a while,but it used it to be extremely time consuming and tedious to do,” Messinger said. “AI tools are much better at fabricating photos like these, leading to much more risk of fakes being created. Additionally, good Photoshops required lots of skill with editing software, but AI has lowered the skill ceiling for creating fakes.”
Aryadini Diggavi ’25 said she is concerned about what the advancements of AI means for people’s digital footprints.
“Now that AI has become so mainstream, it becomes a lot more complicated to have control over it,” Diggavi said. We need to be super careful, but there is now an aspect of it we just can’t control. It is difficult to better our digital footprints in that respect.”
Kate Israel ’26 said she was always made aware of the importance of her digital footprint by her mother, who works in the media industry. Israel said she understands that once she posts on her social media, that information will be permanently online.
“If someone is making the conscious decision to put something out there, then that also sends a message of who they are as a person and what they believe in because they are actively making the choice to put it out there,” Israel said. “It is important to have an awareness of what you are posting and what you are reposting because it is how you are choosing to present yourself to the world through your social media.”
