How Google influences college application process?
Posted by Helen Kemp on March 1st, 2018
Google’s primary product is….us. Our history, our preferences, our purchases. And Jon Boeckenstedt is asking me to give away even more to a for-profit company that makes its money on sending me targeted advertising. Studies show a high number of fake reviews on Yelp etc, and anyway, we already have College Confidential—founded by other admissions officers.
After having taken Northwestern University’s online course called Google and the Media, I believe Google would make the college search itself even more inequitable. Since about 2009, Google began basing your search results on your past search history. So it would only show you colleges it thinks you would like.
If you bought expensive vacations or luxury vehicles, Google Search steers you to colleges with more students of a high Socioeconomic Status (SES). If you entered search returns that reveal your ethnicity in any way, your search returns could feature colleges with a higher percentage who attend there of your background. This is the most insidious form of segregation of all because you don't even know it's happening to you.
A college education should not just reinforce your pre-existing ideas and interests, but open you up to new ones, citing essay writing service. Train you in a career you haven't mastered--or maybe even decided upon. Mix you up with people of talent who are totally different from you.
College search is not easy as it stands now, but John ignores the tools available to high school seniors and their parents. The new federal requirement that all colleges must offer a net-price calculator on their websites has been far more helpful than John may realize. The College Board Search Engine is also good. The federal College Navigator gives specific information about potential colleges, ie we can find out that only 5 people graduated in the major we like at College X. Sure, we need to take the time to read the websites, study the tables and figure it out. God forbid that we should use our own brains.
