S/o College Confidential

[Anonymous]

I have seen people on this forum say that CC is helpful. I have a child starting the college search process. What parts did you find helpful? Which forums did you use? Having kids "chance" each other doesn't seem too productive. Appreciate any tips on how to use this resource.

[Anonymous]

I stick almost exclusively to the Parents forum and avoid the ridiculous chance threads like the plague. The most useful discussions for me have been the ones that discuss financial aid, merit aid, admissions policies, and schools for students with ~3.5 gpa.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/

[Anonymous]

Also, I find this blog to be extremely useful.

http://www.thecollegesolution.com/

[Anonymous]

I use the "College Discussion" forum - the first tab, it's yellow, on the home page. Then I look at Hot Topics mainly for fun, and College Admissions and Search for threads like "what liberal arts program has the best opportunities for my art/music/dance kid" and posts on the environment (stress level, social life) at individual schools. You can also start your own threads to ask questions about graduation requirements.

And yes, the Chance Me threads, where high school students post their stats and get other high school students to rate their chances at different colleges, are 99% useless.

[Anonymous]

College Confidential was much better a few years ago before Hobsons bought it.

[Anonymous]

It's helpful for specific majors and schools. Also, the parent forum is useful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College Confidential was much better a few years ago before Hobsons bought it.

In what way was it better before?

[Anonymous]

Parent forum and forums for individual schools (minus the "chance me" posts). Also, Financial Aid forum when it was time for the FAFSA.

[Anonymous]

I trashed the Chance Me threads a few posts ago. But just for argument's sake, I think there's about 1% value in them, if you spend maybe 1/2 hour (but not any more time!) reading them. Sometimes somebody with actual experience (as opposed to all the 17-year-olds chancing each other) will come on to offer advice such as, "your ECs are all over the place and don't suggest any real passion." Also, some people really do need to be told -- or they need to read it online -- that a transcript with two C's is not going to get them into Harvard, and that they'd do better to stop dreaming and start researching other colleges.

But yeah, don't spend more than 1/2 hour on them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's helpful for specific majors and schools. Also, the parent forum is useful.

+1. You can, for example, go onto the Architecture forum and ask people to contrast different Arch schools at a level of detail you wouldn't get in the Fiske Guide.

[Anonymous]

As a subset in the Parents Forum (used to be directly in the Parents Forum), you'll find the Class of 20xx Community. Here you can find a thread for your child's HS graduating class. This is a great place to hang out for a while to share information and stories with parents of kids the same age as your own. Wonderful resource & kind people to boot.

[Anonymous]

I like it and have certainly gone to it many many times BUT sometimes you can leave feeling like everyone's kid is a straight A, perfect score on the board tests, totally genius kid and it can leave you feeling a bit inferior. It really seems to cater to that top 5%. Just my opinion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like it and have certainly gone to it many many times BUT sometimes you can leave feeling like everyone's kid is a straight A, perfect score on the board tests, totally genius kid and it can leave you feeling a bit inferior. It really seems to cater to that top 5%. Just my opinion.

I feel the same way just leaving my house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a subset in the Parents Forum (used to be directly in the Parents Forum), you'll find the Class of 20xx Community. Here you can find a thread for your child's HS graduating class. This is a great place to hang out for a while to share information and stories with parents of kids the same age as your own. Wonderful resource & kind people to boot.

I read somewhere, maybe Crazy U, that some of these 2400, president-of-5-clubs posts are trolls. Just like on DCUM, imagine that! The other 95% of kids posting their amazing stats and ECs are the kind of kids who are obsessed with their dreams of Harvard, and occasionally someone will post to say they'd improve their chances by going out and pursuing their "passions" instead of wasting time on CC. It helps to stay away from the Ivy League forums, you definitely get less of that on the other college forums.

I find the Results threads way more revealing than the Chance Me speculation. Kids post whether they were accepted, rejected or deferred and then their stats and ECs and hooks (first generation to college ...). If you have Naviance you can do this for your own HS but without the ECs and hooks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like it and have certainly gone to it many many times BUT sometimes you can leave feeling like everyone's kid is a straight A, perfect score on the board tests, totally genius kid and it can leave you feeling a bit inferior. It really seems to cater to that top 5%. Just my opinion.

This is why the threads for parents of B students or 3.3 gpas, etc., are so refreshing.