Digital Footprint & College Admissions

Today we had a speaker, Jerry Ackerman, who spoke to our students about social media and the impact it can have on our personal and social life. As a school community there has been a significant amount of time and emphasis encouraging students to be smart about your digital footprint - the information that you are posting and sharing through various social media outlets. As a component of that, we have often mentioned that the internet and social media can impact your college admissions, scholarship offerings or even various job offerings. Below are a few articles that speak to this: 

Do colleges look at prospective students' social media?

Colleges shift to using "big data" - including social media in admissions decisions

How Social Media can Ruin Your Application

College Admissions: Social Media Tune Up

Colleges are spying on applicants by quietly tracking them across the internet.


Number of Employees Passing On Applicants Due To Social Media Posts.


This is a perfect time to pause and critically look at your digital footprint and consider what it is saying about you and the impression you are giving to future college admissions officers, scholarship committee members, and potential employers. Please make smart choices about what you post online.
Thanks Jerry for a great message for our young students.

Flap Jack Friday

Well Friday marks the end of the 3rd quarter. As the old saying goes, time flies when you are having fun. I guess there is a lot of truth in that statement especially around here at Vantage. I have spoken with so many of our students lately and I like asking them if they are glad they chose Vantage. I have never gotten a negative response. They use various responses like "I feel treated like an adult here" or "I just really love my lab", but the one I hear most often is "it is fun here". I often ask them what they mean by that and they tell me that they just really enjoy being in lab for a half day. They also state because they are in lab for a half day, it makes going to academics so much easier. Of course the students love their lab but I also see so many academic classes having fun. I see students out in the hallways measuring objects or their stride lengths. I see them flying paper airplanes for science. We just completed our numeracy challenge a week or two ago and will be sending several students to the next level for that competition. I know in Science they will begin their "roller coaster" construction very soon (just look at all the cardboard in Mr. Joyce's classroom). If you haven't seen this before, you should really stop in Mr. Joyce's class while that is going on. Talk about fun! WOW! Combining academics and fun to make a great learning experience. What a novel idea. I think that says a lot about our lab instructors and our academic teachers. Thanks for engaging our students and challenging them to go above and beyond what they think they can do.

This Friday we will also be celebrating the end of the third quarter and saying thanks to all our students and staff. There will be a free breakfast starting at 7:30 am. Several of our staff members will be flipping pancakes and cooking sausage in the wee hours of the morning. I hope students will try to get here early and mingle with the staff and enjoy a nice breakfast. I want to thank Gail Gillett for organizing all of this and for the staff who have volunteered to help.

For those students who may have seen their grades drop a little during the third quarter, now is the time to get it in gear. There are only 42 days left for the seniors. If you are in danger of not passing a class, now is the time to put in the extra effort and work hard. This is not the time to have "senioritis". For all the students, these next 42 days will fly by. Make the most out of these days. Work hard, earn good grades and most of all have fun while you are learning. I hope to see everyone tomorrow morning at the pancake breakfast.