If you still aren’t convinced that your Facebook or MySpace page could possibly make it more difficult for you to get into the college of your dreams, you might want to check out a recent article published in The Wall Street Journal. According to the article, a recent survey conducted by the Kaplan education company found that 10% of admission officers from 320 of the top 500 colleges in the country admitted that they do check out social networking sites when evaluating applicants. In addition, 38% of these admission officer acknowledged having their views “negatively affected” by what they saw on the website. Conversely, only about 25% said their opinions were improved when they looked at the social networking sites.

Currently, most colleges do not have any policies in place regarding using social networking sites to help determine who does and does not get into their schools. Not surprisingly, however, the subject is one of great debate. While some admission officers maintain that the information contained on these pages is public information that should be used during the decision-making process, others do not feel comfortable searching through the social networking pages of potential students.

“We’re in the early stage of a new technology,” said Jeff Olson, who is the head of the test preparation division for Kaplan, in The Wall Street Journal article. “It’s the Wild, Wild West. There are no clear boundaries or limits.”

Another study conducted by the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth revealed that approximately 21% of colleges use these sites to gather information about potential students and to help them determine who they will award their scholarships to.

“No one wants to be on the front page of the newspaper for giving a scholarship to a murderer,” said Nora Ganim, who is the director of the Center for Marketing Research at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, in The Wall Street Journal article. “Everybody is trying to protect their brands.”

Although some colleges do advise their staff not to look at social networking sties when making their admissions decisions, a growing number of schools are using these sites to help them decide who gets in and who doesn’t. Therefore, if you are planning to apply to the college of your dreams, make certain you don’t have anything questionable on your site that may stand between you and your education.