Anonymous wrote:This forum seems to have gained a few trolls and definitely gained a right wing political lobbyist or two in the past few years. I had read about the political push to infiltrate listservs, interest and neighborhood groups, but it was a bit surreal to see it unfold. Also, either a kid troll or marketer or just rabid fan of neu and someone (probably a kid) who likes to rile said marketer. Definitely a bunch of HS and college kids either lurking or getting their kicks by trolling. Also, a few people who like to pronounce judgment on others' parenting for any question asked. And the competitive ranking/testing/private results obsessors.

And, the rest are parents sharing info and ideas with good days and bad days and opinions (political both ways, parenting, financial, etc). Wish it were more of this last group, but we are still out here. You just have to wade through the other stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This forum seems to have gained a few trolls and definitely gained a right wing political lobbyist or two in the past few years. I had read about the political push to infiltrate listservs, interest and neighborhood groups, but it was a bit surreal to see it unfold.Also, either a kid troll or marketer or just rabid fan of neu and someone (probably a kid) who likes to rile said marketer. Definitely a bunch of HS and college kids either lurking or getting their kicks by trolling. Also, a few people who like to pronounce judgment on others' parenting for any question asked. And the competitive ranking/testing/private results obsessors.

And, the rest are parents sharing info and ideas with good days and bad days and opinions (political both ways, parenting, financial, etc). Wish it were more of this last group, but we are still out here. You just have to wade through the other stuff.

+1 on all this and especially the bold. RW talking points, both obvious and subtle, are all over this site, on every sub-forum.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I found this forum to be super helpful when my oldest was applying to colleges. He just finished his first year. There are some trolls, but I think the majority of the posters provide honest feedback and insight.

+1. When my oldest was applying to colleges a few years ago, I gleaned a lot of helpful information here. I would attend college-focused sessions at his school and find that I already knew a lot of the information they were sharing, from what I'd learned here.

You just have to skip a lot of the nonsense.

Anonymous wrote:I found this forum to be super helpful when my oldest was applying to colleges. He just finished his first year. There are some trolls, but I think the majority of the posters provide honest feedback and insight.

Anonymous wrote:This forum seems to have gained a few trolls and definitely gained a right wing political lobbyist or two in the past few years. I had read about the political push to infiltrate listservs, interest and neighborhood groups, but it was a bit surreal to see it unfold.Also, either a kid troll or marketer or just rabid fan of neu and someone (probably a kid) who likes to rile said marketer. Definitely a bunch of HS and college kids either lurking or getting their kicks by trolling. Also, a few people who like to pronounce judgment on others' parenting for any question asked. And the competitive ranking/testing/private results obsessors.

And, the rest are parents sharing info and ideas with good days and bad days and opinions (political both ways, parenting, financial, etc). Wish it were more of this last group, but we are still out here. You just have to wade through the other stuff.

Anonymous wrote:This forum seems to have gained a few trolls and definitely gained a right wing political lobbyist or two in the past few years. I had read about the political push to infiltrate listservs, interest and neighborhood groups, but it was a bit surreal to see it unfold. Also, either a kid troll or marketer or just rabid fan of neu and someone (probably a kid) who likes to rile said marketer. Definitely a bunch of HS and college kids either lurking or getting their kicks by trolling. Also, a few people who like to pronounce judgment on others' parenting for any question asked. And the competitive ranking/testing/private results obsessors.

And, the rest are parents sharing info and ideas with good days and bad days and opinions (political both ways, parenting, financial, etc). Wish it were more of this last group, but we are still out here. You just have to wade through the other stuff.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Started visiting the site to learn about a couple of schools DC was interested in. I felt that I was getting some good information until I compared what I was seeing here with other sources. Turns out that ~95 percent of the info here was false! There were a lot of people pretending to be someone and something they aren't in order to lend their views credibility (which you can't do as easily on forums with rules, like College Confidential). They were just spreading lies to damage these particular schools. But what was really demoralizing was that the people genuinely trying to help also posted stuff that used to be true but no longer was. Honestly, I like the Fiske guide, College Confidential, and Reddit plus schools' press releases better than this place simply for gathering facts. There are no facts here, just twelfth-dimensional disinformation campaigns sustained over months and even years by wounded egos.

Moderators at College Confidential are a very mixed bag and can exert a lot of influence. Censoring personal attacks is one thing (which isn’t consistently applied), but censoring courteous, fact-based posts is another and happens more than one might guess. In some ways there’s even more of a mob effect there than here, as it’s easier and more common to silence the less popular view. That might be an issue when, for example, certain big schools are being compared to certain smaller ones.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, I recommend you get out now and don't look back. This is the bad place. Even the useful and well-intentioned posts required wading chest-deep through misinformation and muck.

Here are the things I got out of here that were valuable:

1. I was introduced to Jeff Selingo -- his book The Price You Pay for College is worth the money.

2. ?

OP here. Thank you.

Fortunately, my kid is past the college application process (though I have a second one). I found this forum through the Reddit page that was populated by mostly high school students and it was a pretty good place to start from as long as there was an awareness that these kids are mostly on the same boat of being clueless too. I ironically thought that this forum would have more real life experiences with it being populated by adults but found that the reddit pages were actually kinder and more decent.

It's very unfortunate because a lot of parents do come here from a place of not knowing and vulnerability and it's super weird to see the responses to legitimate questions be so rude and unhelpful that I did wonder if the responses were from actual adults or just teens trying to be... edgy?

Anonymous wrote:Started visiting the site to learn about a couple of schools DC was interested in. I felt that I was getting some good information until I compared what I was seeing here with other sources. Turns out that ~95 percent of the info here was false! There were a lot of people pretending to be someone and something they aren't in order to lend their views credibility (which you can't do as easily on forums with rules, like College Confidential). They were just spreading lies to damage these particular schools. But what was really demoralizing was that the people genuinely trying to help also posted stuff that used to be true but no longer was. Honestly, I like the Fiske guide, College Confidential, and Reddit plus schools' press releases better than this place simply for gathering facts. There are no facts here, just twelfth-dimensional disinformation campaigns sustained over months and even years by wounded egos.

Anonymous wrote:Honestly, OP, I recommend you get out now and don't look back. This is the bad place. Even the useful and well-intentioned posts required wading chest-deep through misinformation and muck.

Here are the things I got out of here that were valuable:

1. I was introduced to Jeff Selingo -- his book The Price You Pay for College is worth the money.

2. ?