Do adcomms Google applicants?

[Curca]

I can't ruminate without a visual, so what do you think? Are they googling us or could they care less because they just got roped into being on the committee? I wish I knew how it all works behind the scenes. Do they just all sit together at a big table one afternoon and go through applications? Do they have online access from home? Any thoughts on this?

[moralresearcher]

I can't ruminate without a visual, so what do you think? Are they googling us or could they care less because they just got roped into being on the committee? I wish I knew how it all works behind the scenes. Do they just all sit together at a big table one afternoon and go through applications? Do they have online access from home? Any thoughts on this?

Yes they do. My advisor has a creepy, big-brother like tracker on our lab website so he can see where the traffic comes from and he's let me know that a few of my programs have been googling me.

[MoJingly]

Yes they do. My advisor has a creepy, big-brother like tracker on our lab website so he can see where the traffic comes from and he's let me know that a few of my programs have been googling me.

whoa

[Bukharan]

I was wondering this.

I really hope no one checks.

I have a double spelling of my name. Not much comes up under my 'official' name (under which I applied), which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. Under the other spelling, the whole spectrum shows up: from academic prizes and student societies to my comments on random travel blogs.

Edited January 14, 2011 by Bukharan

[newms]

Yep they google you so its always a good idea to make sure your public image out there (eg your Facebook/Twitter etc) is sanitized.

[MoJingly]

I guess I always knew it happened, but does anybody agree that it's still strange when it ACTUALLY happens?

[lasgirl]

Yep they google you so its always a good idea to make sure your public image out there (eg your Facebook/Twitter etc) is sanitized.

And at the very least, have every single privacy setting on that's available.

You can't search for my name/email on facebook, nothing can be seen if you're not my friend, and even my friends can't see my pictures

[Tex]

Oh dear. If you google my real name and field, the top result is my twitter account.

I just went over to my twitter account to delete a tweet. It expressed my hatred for one school's application (which incidentally is also at the top of my list). I think I'm going to make it a private account.

Edited January 14, 2011 by Tex

[katerific]

I used to think that being facebook friends with my mom was a terrible idea, but then I realized it is FANTASTIC. The "mom filter" has drastically improved the quality of my facebook.

When googling my name, you mostly get a bunch of college/HS awards of mine, fortunately. The worst thing that comes up is ONE link to a facebook group about chicken sandwiches.

[natsteel]

Yep they google you so its always a good idea to make sure your public image out there (eg your Facebook/Twitter etc) is sanitized.

This is very good advice. Last year, I read a number of horror stories of adcoms and job search committees checking candidates out online. So I started trying to "manage" my online profile/presence. While it may seem self-obsessed to Google yourself regularly, surely you want to know what adcoms will see when they Google your name, and they WILL Google your name. A couple of tips I've found:

1) Use high settings of privacy on Facebook and use a respectable/professional looking profile pic.

2) All social websites (including your profiles on sites like Amazon, Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Ning) show up fairly high in Google results so if a Google search of your name doesn't turn up stuff of yours or, even worse, turns up stuff you'd rather not be seen by adcoms:

a. Register for personal social sites like Facebook and Twitter and give them a modestly professional appearance.

b. Register for professional networking sites, especially Academia.edu and LinkedIn. They'll all show up on the first page of Google search results and are professional by nature.

c. Do a & b even if you're not going to use them regularly. People that do Google searches rarely look beyond the first page and so you want to do your best to control what shows up

on that first page.

3) If you have a Google account, create your Google profile which will also show up on the first page usually.

Basically, treat every website where you are registered under your real name as if adcoms were the only people that would be looking at it.

Edited January 14, 2011 by natsteel

[Scottielass]

I use my middle initial on every piece of professional correspondence just for this reason. I wouldn't want someone confusing me with some slacker who happens to have the same name . Though this did remind me to google myself. I haven't done that in a while. I'm still fairly anonymous (except for a couple of articles I wrote), and that's not a bad thing.

[was1984]

I have an extremely common first, middle, and last name. My parents' lack of creativity really pays off in this modern era. I can use the internet confident in my complete anonymity, since there are probably 500 people in the U.S. with the exact same (first, middle, and last) names as I have.

[kotov]

Let's see, I get my Facebook, God help me...a lot of crap to show them that I was awesome in high school...Sporcle...and me bitching about the quality of NBA officials -- if they're basketball fans that will probably be readily approved of.

[Emerson]

This is very good advice. Last year, I read a number of horror stories of adcoms and job search committees checking candidates out online. So I started trying to "manage" my online profile/presence. While it may seem self-obsessed to Google yourself regularly, surely you want to know what adcoms will see when they Google your name, and they WILL Google your name. A couple of tips I've found:

1) Use high settings of privacy on Facebook and use a respectable/professional looking profile pic.

2) All social websites (including your profiles on sites like Amazon, Goodreads, LibraryThing, and Ning) show up fairly high in Google results so if a Google search of your name doesn't turn up stuff of yours or, even worse, turns up stuff you'd rather not be seen by adcoms:

a. Register for personal social sites like Facebook and Twitter and give them a modestly professional appearance.

b. Register for professional networking sites, especially Academia.edu and LinkedIn. They'll all show up on the first page of Google search results and are professional by nature.

c. Do a & b even if you're not going to use them regularly. People that do Google searches rarely look beyond the first page and so you want to do your best to control what shows up

on that first page.

3) If you have a Google account, create your Google profile which will also show up on the first page usually.

Basically, treat every website where you are registered under your real name as if adcoms were the only people that would be looking at it.

I hate to be a parrot, but I echo all of this. "Managing" your internet presence is a must. I comment at a few academic-oriented blogs, and often use my full name, so this mindset makes sure that I alway say something respectable and that won't come back to bite me.

Also, do register an academia profile. It is a great way to make yourself look professional and spread your interests/achievements/etc. Academia has a great tracker that allows you to see when your name is googled, what words they used when searching, and what country of origin the search came from. I'm very confident in saying that adcoms google applicants, because I always see a spike in searches during the weeks that admissions committees begin meeting.

Biggest downfall for me: some idiot who shares my name broke into an apartment in the same town I live in, and photographs of said idiot are near the top of the results whenever my name is googled. Even somewhat looks like me, too. Luckily it says that it happened long before I moved here, but you actually have to click on the website to find that out. I really hope searchers don't think it's me.

[natsteel]

I hate to be a parrot, but I echo all of this. "Managing" your internet presence is a must. I comment at a few academic-oriented blogs, and often use my full name, so this mindset makes sure that I alway say something respectable and that won't come back to bite me.

Also, do register an academia profile. It is a great way to make yourself look professional and spread your interests/achievements/etc. Academia has a great tracker that allows you to see when your name is googled, what words they used when searching, and what country of origin the search came from. I'm very confident in saying that adcoms google applicants, because I always see a spike in searches during the weeks that admissions committees begin meeting.

Biggest downfall for me: some idiot who shares my name broke into an apartment in the same town I live in, and photographs of said idiot are near the top of the results whenever my name is googled. Even somewhat looks like me, too. Luckily it says that it happened long before I moved here, but you actually have to click on the website to find that out. I really hope searchers don't think it's me.

Emerson, a guy with the same name as you broke into an apartment in the same town?? Talk about bad luck... The Google info from Academia.edu is an added bonus. No matter what you think of the functionality of these sites, they do show up high in Google searches and therefore makes them an important part and easy way to help manage your online presence especially in Google searches.

[Zouzax]

When googling my name, you mostly get a bunch of college/HS awards of mine, fortunately. The worst thing that comes up is ONE link to a facebook group about chicken sandwiches.

[Count de Monet]

I hope they're not googling potential students because odd are they're not going to find much on the actual person. It would be a massive waste of time. Now, if they wanted to look at facebook pages......

[abolitionista]

I'm tremendously worried about this because there is someone with my same name and she does deplorable things online like comment on Trya Banks' TV show blog using her real name. Who does that? She also has a twitter account where she post offensive things and so on. I hope they can see that she is not me! It would suck terribly to get knocked because I happen to have the same name as someone who obviously has no life :-(

[singlecell]

I have an extremely common first, middle, and last name. My parents' lack of creativity really pays off in this modern era. I can use the internet confident in my complete anonymity, since there are probably 500 people in the U.S. with the exact same (first, middle, and last) names as I have.

Yes! I just self-Googled and found the same thing. I don't come up in the first page of people with my name at all. None of the google images are of the real me, either.

Cheers to uncreative parents!

[TheDude]

Heard of a buddy using Ziggs to see if a job was googling him. I just signed up. Maybe this will yield something cool, though it is probably to late in the process.

[kyjin]

It's a smart idea to google yourself every now and then and see how your internet "image" is. I've been doing this long before applying for graduate school, mainly because I have an uncommon name, and the first few pages of googled items under my name are mostly connected to me. It's a good idea to keep your facebook under high privacy settings, and if your twitter is under your real name, locking it to private is also good. Things that you really want to keep private but public, such as a blog, should not include any link to your name or facebook, etc.

I really don't mind if the adcomms google me- there's a link to my facebook and twitter which are under private locks, but aside from that I have links to my undergraduate departments, conferences I've been in, and an article from my undergraduate college describing what graduates were doing this year.

[BlueRose]

It wouldn't surprise me if they did.

I checked my official name, and there's nothing bad on the first page. The second page contains a flamewar and a mildly disturbing play about grave robbers...both me, yes. I have an unusual last name, so nowhere to hide.

This reminds me to do a better job of linking to my official name in social networking (I go by a nickname socially, but official documents and publications are under my full name). My website doesn't even come up under my official name...must fix.

Edited January 15, 2011 by BlueRose

[zjwah]

A guidance counselor at my previous grad school told me about pipl.com. It's basically an advanced people search. This along with googling yourself will give you an idea of what is out there about you. Some of the info pipl.com generates isn't accurate (3rd party websites), but it will reveal what exactly is available.

This is one of the times I thank my parents for making me go by the shortened version of my middle name. It was a hassle growing up, but when adcomms search for my legal name they won't find much about me. The name I go by comes up with some info, but thankfully nothing embarrassing.

[augustquail]

wow--this is a little creepy. I googled myself, and nothing really comes up except two pdfs like 'dean's list of distinguished students' and 'academic awards', so I guess that's ok. My facebook doesn't show up because of my privacy settings.

What was really weird, though, is that this website called 'reunion.com' has a 'profile' for me...I never made that. And it lists me as my brother's contact, and I know he never made one either. But in order to see that profile, you have to register (with your name, birthdate, and location), which I didn't do, because it just seems like a scam. Still, it kind of worries me that there is a profile of mine that I never even made...

There aren't any other people with my name that show up on google, so that's good (except with a different spelling). But strangely, my name (again, spelled differently) is extremely common in France. Weird.

[anonacademic]

Apparently there is a page of famous quotes by me! Excellent. Someone somewhat famous shares my name, exact, uncommon spelling and all. Fortunately it's not Paris Hilton

OH GOD there are images! Forget Google - Google Images!

EDIT: yesss! yesss! For unknown, completely unintelligible, inconceivable reasons, Sarah Palin pops up! Ridiculous.

Edited January 15, 2011 by Chumlee