Put yourself in the shoes of a college admissions officer. Your job is to review applications from people half your age and decide if the applicant will enhance the student body and the reputation of the college. Armed with Instagram, Reddit and all the rest, you look up the applicant’s digital trail. Do you pick the user with the handle @lovehitsongs or @lovetoparrrtyyy? The one with the photos of you learning to drive or the one that shows you texting at the wheel?

We all know the answer.

Before you apply to college, take a long hard look at your online presence and ask yourself these two questions:

• If my posts/comments were read out in public, would they make me look bad?

• Am I oversharing, either to too wide an audience, or with too much information?

If the answer to any of these is yes, you need to take action.

Getting clean

Tackle the easy things first. Clean up your online ‘about me’-info, e.g. your Facebook front page and LinkedIn profile. Review the privacy settings of all your accounts and restrict who sees the things that you post, comment on or share. Make sure you are not tagged in other people’s posts.

Tip 1: Don’t be surprised that online services make this process harder than it should be - after all, their business model is based on users like you providing the free content that allows them to mine the audience that sees it for dollars. Expect to spend 15-30 minutes for each service. Do the big ones first, such as Instagram, Twitter and YouTube.

Tip 2: Watch out for sharing in unexpected places. For example, Venmo shares your payment messages with the world unless you disable the feature.

Delete any posts and comments that are inappropriate (erring on the side of caution). You don’t want to be caught out by something your worst 12-year-old self wrote five years ago.

Use this activity as an opportunity to delete old and inactive accounts. In all likelihood, you’ve grown out of Musical.ly. And is anyone still on Tumblr?

Staying clean

If you ask yourself the two questions above before you post, comment, like, etc., you will be in great shape. Remember, the college’s first responsibility is to the college, not to you. They will not have the time for a nuanced understanding of your online presence. That thing you posted to 4chan might have been the funniest meme ever, but the college administration will see “4chan” and think “Online trolls. Nope!” It’s best to avoid situations like that from the start.

Can’t I just use throwaway accounts and browse in Incognito mode?

All incognito mode does is clean up the trail on your browser. It doesn’t do anything about your trail on the web. As for throwaways, they are quite easy to overcome for a determined searcher.

It’s OK. My real life is on <XYZ>. No middle-aged admissions officer is going to find me there. I doubt they’ve even heard of it.

Admissions people work on college campuses surrounded by 18-year-olds from all over the country and the world. Don’t risk your application on them not having heard of some new app or site.

The bonus of taking care of it now is that you will more than ready when you start applying for internships and jobs in the near future. Being the smart one at college and keeping those embarrassing moments between friends and off the web won’t hurt either.

Admission Pathways is here to help students prepare for college. Contact us for a free consult.