Social media goes to school. Now, it’s time to make honor roll.

A recent survey by the MBA Tour  reveals that 85 percent of potential M.B.A. students use social media to research their top business school choices.

These same students are also looking at their school’s course offerings and looking for classes with a focus on social media. According to the same MBA Tour survey, a whopping 99 percent of these potential students identified social media as either “necessary” or “important” to their field.

Social media is radically and quickly changing the way we think about business. It’s also changing the way businesses think about social media. Many organizations, like Fundly  , recognize that social media is the most effect way to reach out to supporter and grow your organization.

The institution of school, however, is having a hard time keeping up.

Over half of current MBA students and MBA graduates said that social media options and classes were either “not up to par with the growing industry” or not provided at all.

In an April 2011 blog post  , U.S. News and World Reports writer Stacy Blackman highlighted some impressive social media offerings of some of the top business schools in the nation. Though several elite institutions including the Harvard Business School, Columbia Business School, and the Stanford Graduate School of Business boast some rich course offerings, the MBA Tour survey reveals that there’s still a lot of work to be done.

Still, business schools may be at the top of the academic game.

Graduate schools in education, for example, have yet to embrace social media in their curriculum. Many aspiring teachers are not developing the social media tools, skills and information they need to educate their students on responsible use of social media.

Most high school teachers are still viewing social media as the enemy that keeps students from completing their homework.

Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English is in a league of its own. Under the instruction of Professor Dixie Goswami, high school teachers from across the nation gathered in Middlebury, Vermont this summer to take a course titled “Interpretive Communities: Using Social Media and Digital Tools to Engage Readers and Writers.” Over the six weeks they were there, they created and developed thriving, interactive online communities centered on books. What did they use to attract readers and potential readers?  Social media.

Maybe it’s time for school, at all levels, to reconsider social media – in both attitude and approach. As recent responses from MBA applicants suggest, social media has a lot to give. It’s time we all began to tap its potential.