Once upon a time, many years ago, those who wanted to join Facebook had to be students. You could only get a Facebook profile if you had an active email address issued by a college or university. Eventually they expanded to include high school students, and finally threw open the doors and let everyone in.
Now, however, it looks like Facebook is going back to its roots. In December they began testing Groups for Schools. Like Facebook of old, these groups are exclusive to those with active school email addresses. The program began with two schools – Brown and Vanderbilt. Now it looks like they’re expanding the program to include more schools. A report today by ZDNet says that they’ve added the University of Toronto.
With Groups for Schools, individual institutions create their own groups and set the rules for what constitutes a valid email address. Once in, group members can create sub-groups for dorms, classes, campus activities, and more. Group members can also invite their friends to join the group, and non-members can request to join, just as with other Facebook groups.
Facebook has not disclosed which schools are currently participating in the program, and suggests that those whose schools are not yet represented be patient, as they will be adding more schools “soon.”
Is your school part of the testing? Are you a member of a school group? What do you think of the new feature? Let us know in the comments.