Uni applicants checked on Facebook

Pictures of festive drunken excesses or risqué status updates on your Facebook profile might be damaging your chances of getting into a top university.

The potential hazards of Facebook, and the amount of information willingly placed in the public domain, are becoming apparent for employees or job applicants. But school leavers may also be open to the perils of social networking sites.

According to today’s Guardian, a senior admissions tutor from Cambridge University has admitted to checking applicants’ Facebook profiles, telling the Emmanuel College magazine “This has been the year in which I joined Facebook.”

Dr Richard Barnes continued:

"I have to confess that I actually joined to see what I was missing and also to check up (discreetly) on applicants for a college position. I had been alerted to the value of this by some of our members in the City."

Cambridge University assured The Guardian it was a "throwaway line". "You know perfectly well how our admission procedures work," said a spokesperson.

Only academic records, personal statements and interviews are supposed to be taken into account when selecting applicants to university, but with people voluntarily leaving more personal information open to strangers, many would argue Dr Barnes’ confession should not come as a surprise.

It is, of course, possible to prevent personal information on Facebook being open to the public. Cambridge hopefuls possibly should have cottoned on.