College confidential gives better advice but there are a few who beat the same drum in every answer. In fact i think they are here now.
A2C Reddit is decent but more for students

Agreed that College Confidential is the best for grounded advice. It's anonymous, but you have to have an account, and it has some community norms, so it avoids most of the terribleness you see on DCUM. Agreed that there are some posters who should maybe take a break now and then, but there are others whose comments are priceless, and they make up for it. Maybe create an account there and just read for a bit before posting so you can start to understand some of the personalities there.

College Confidential. My first experience with the college application process as a parent was with DS three years ago. Stumbled upon CC and comments about it on Reddit was "CC was full of elitists!" I gradually learned that the opposite appears to be true: posters there are not "HYPSM or bust" and certainly don't view public schools as trash like some at DCUM di. They also often try to keep "prestige-chasing" students and parents grounded. That said, at times it can be annoying/tiring to see certain posters going on and on about their personal life stories.

DCUM is the worst when it comes to college advising.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am first time parent going through this - so much of me wants to talk about all of this with my other mom friends but am hesitant given all of these kids are essentially competing with each other. I fee like ChatGPT just tells me what I want to hear- "with those stats your child looks great!"

Np:
I completely agree. I’ve used it and this has been my experience.

Don't use GPT. I find its generally weak compared to all the new paid AI, esp anthropic.
Also push back and say are you sure, this is one weakness, I think there are more. How to strengthen.
I also feed it r/collegeresults (filtered by major or other data points aligned with my kid). The more data you give it, the better. There are some great OLD posts on here on how AO score or rate an application. Use that and find others on reddit or CC.

There's a lot of info out there that can process this faster than anyone could have imagined. No need to pay for a full service private counselor either (thought a good essay person is priceless)

Anonymous wrote:is College Confidential still on?

very underrated. A lot of very experienced folks with nothing better (or worse, depending on how you look at it) to do than advise those posting.

Anonymous wrote:I am first time parent going through this - so much of me wants to talk about all of this with my other mom friends but am hesitant given all of these kids are essentially competing with each other. I fee like ChatGPT just tells me what I want to hear- "with those stats your child looks great!"

I completely agree. I’ve used it and this has been my experience.

Anonymous wrote:I am first time parent going through this - so much of me wants to talk about all of this with my other mom friends but am hesitant given all of these kids are essentially competing with each other. I fee like ChatGPT just tells me what I want to hear- "with those stats your child looks great!"

LOL

It's great that gpt serves as a therapist for you.

I would ask more questions like, areas for improvement, weak points, etc.

I am first time parent going through this - so much of me wants to talk about all of this with my other mom friends but am hesitant given all of these kids are essentially competing with each other. I fee like ChatGPT just tells me what I want to hear- "with those stats your child looks great!"

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I use gpt a lot analyzing school specific data and fine tuning strategy. General college information is useless. Sometimes I would ask gpt to read a DCUM thread to integrate some good advice, when the profile is similar to DC's.

Do you create different AI agents or "projects"? Like one for college selection/app strategy and one for major strategy/narrative strategy?

I probably should do that, but didn't. Data sharing is off. Gpt keeps everything you ever feed to it so you don't need a designated "project" for this purpose. I share all the strategies with it, keep fine-tuning / updating it. Ask specific questions, then ask additional in-depth questions when gpt answers. Verify all facts by independent google search.

Anonymous wrote:I use gpt a lot analyzing school specific data and fine tuning strategy. General college information is useless. Sometimes I would ask gpt to read a DCUM thread to integrate some good advice, when the profile is similar to DC's.

Do you create different AI agents or "projects"? Like one for college selection/app strategy and one for major strategy/narrative strategy?

I use gpt a lot analyzing school specific data and fine tuning strategy. General college information is useless. Sometimes I would ask gpt to read a DCUM thread to integrate some good advice, when the profile is similar to DC's.

Reddit (A2C; chanceme; collegeresults; ApplyingIvyLeague)
FB college admissions private and public groups

curious what others say.

is College Confidential still on?

Tell me!