Wednesday's Most Active Threads

The thread about the Gaza war continued to lead as the most active thread yesterday with nearly 900 new posts. Another conflict which looks like it may continue forever — the selection of a new Speaker of the US House of Representatives — was the subject of the second most active. Moving to the third most active thread because I've already discussed those two takes us to sort of an oddball topic. Titled, "Montgomery County Council recognizes International Pronouns Day" and posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics" forum, the original poster complained that while Virginia was seeing the benefits of Amazon's HQ2, the Montgomery County Council had passed a resolution recognizing International Pronouns Day, something the original poster considered to be a joke. One of those responding embedded a 16 minute video of the portion of the Council meeting dealing with this topic. The event consisted of Councilmember Kate Stewart introducing a group of supporters of the resolution, most of whom represented local organizations, and then speaking about why she considered the resolution to be important. In addition, Council President Evan Glass and Councilmember Kristin Mink spoke. A few of the supporters also spoke and then the Councilmembers read the resolution. The resolution was the first item on the agenda and from what can be seen on the video, most Councilmembers hadn't yet arrived and had little to no involvement with the resolution. I mention all of this because many of the responses complained about the Council wasting time on what those posters considered an unimportant issue. But, in fact, very little actual time was lost. Many of those responding appeared to be quite angry that the Council passed this resolution, some even threatened to move out of Montgomery County. One poster — who could probably benefit from a government class provided by Montgomery County Public Schools — declared this to be another reason to homeschool. The resolution, of course, has nothing to do with schools. Of course, local government entities pass all sorts of ceremonial resolutions of this type. For instance, the Montgomery County Council also recently recognized National Farmer’s Day and National Service Dog Month. These are simply easy ways to recognize issues of importance to members of the community. There is certainly something ironic about posters spending 9 pages complaining about what they believe to be a waste of time. Personally, I would be in favor of a resolution recognizing "National Make Conservatives' Heads Explode Day", but that may have already been held on September 12 when the Council presented a proclamation "Celebrating the Drag Story Hour and Participants".

Next was a thread posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. Titled, "That awkward moment when you realize you don't qualify as family", the original poster says that she called her mother-in-law to ask for the recipe for a pie that her mother-in-law cooks every Thanksgiving. Her mother-in-law refused to share the recipe because "it's a family recipe". The original poster was very hurt to learn that her mother-in-law doesn't consider her to be a member of the family. Since that call, she has avoided communicating with her mother-in-law and is not sure how to handle the relationship going forward. The original poster's husband is furious with his mom but the original poster says this is an issue that doesn't involve him, but rather between her and his mom. Most posters agree that this is ridiculous behavior by the mother-in-law and some support keeping a distant relationship as a result. Others say that while the mother-in-law was wrong, a pie recipe is simply not that big of a deal and having a good relationship is more important. Others advise to simply have the original poster's husband ask for the recipe. But, as the original poster explains, she considers this much more important than the recipe because it reflects what she now believes to be her mother-in-law's entire perception of the original poster's place in the family. Several posters think the original poster is being too sensitive. Others describe additional examples of daughters-in-law being excluded and agree that it is hurtful. But, on the other hand are posters who explain that some people place higher priority on "blood" relationships than on relationships by marriage. They don't necessarily agree with the attitude, but understand it. The original poster also mentioned that her mother-in-law had shared the recipe with her niece. This also angered the original poster, but other posters saw it as another workaround since the original poster could ask her niece for the recipe. That still didn't address what the original poster sees as the bigger issue, but could at least allow her to cook the pie.

Third for today was a thread titled, "Chill applications thread" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster invites posts from those who allowed their kids to complete their own college applications and didn't hire counsellors or coaches. Her example of doing this was not to object when her daughter refused to share her college essays and supplemental materials. The original poster trusts her daughter to have done a good job. Several of those responding said that they helped their kids with applications by providing information such as their own degrees and other things the kids didn't know. The original poster admitted to having done that as well and, while I wouldn't really consider that helping, she appeared to accept it as such. Fairly quickly there was an onslaught of complaints by posters who thought that parents such as the original poster were "humblebragging" and trying to demonstrate how self-sufficient their kids were. Some posters even went beyond that and said that the thread was actually meant for parents to brag about themselves. As one poster said, the only point of the thread was to post "self-congratulatory anecdotes about how relaxed, cool" the posters are. This lead to posts pointing out that those getting this worked up about things definitely were not "chill" and the thread was not for them. Other posters warned that the "chill" posters should not be surprised in the near future when their kids suddenly needed their help. The college forum is normally dominated by super-involved and competitive posters who are obsessed with elite universities. They spend every waking minute trying to figure out how their kid can gain even the most minute advantage in the application process. After that, they devote themselves to complaining about how unfair the process is and why it was clearly biased against their child. It really seems like those parents see this thread as a direct affront to them and react accordingly. Rather than "chill", they see these parents as lazy. They put down what they expect are the likely college choices of the kids involved. They even complain that this was a missed opportunity for building a relationship with their children. Basically, I think the "chill" parents represent about 80% or more of college parents. But, it is exactly the opposite type of parent that dominates the forum. As such, the kind of conflict demonstrated in the thread was probably inevitable.

Finally, the last thread that I will discuss today was also posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "High stats kids: do most apply ED somewhere?", the original poster asks whether, money not being an issue, most kids with high grade point averages and test scores apply for Early Decision college acceptance. As a reminder, early decision or ED is a type of college application of which students can only submit one, and if accepted are committed to attending the college. As such, it is important to apply ED only if the student is truly prepared to attend the school and can afford it. Most of the replies simply reinforce these points. In many cases, posters would rather apply later and be able to make choices based on merit aid offers. Quite a few others say that their kids can't decide on a first choice and, therefore, are not prepared for such a commitment. There is some debate about the value of ED, especially for "unhooked" students (those who are not legacies, recruited athletes, etc.). However, ED does seem to be a good choice for high stats kids who can afford the school to which they are applying because many selective schools are believed to fill most of their enrollment through ED. If you are new to DCUM college discussions, you may not be familiar with the phrase "yield protection" which comes up in this thread. Yield protection refers to the percentage of students who are accepted that actually go on to enroll. There is a coterie of posters in the forum who are absolutely obsessed with this idea. They insist that colleges focus on yield protection in order to enhance their reputations. There is probably not a single issue related to college applications that someone will not explain by bringing up yield protection. It would not surprise me if even cafeteria food menus were attributed by someone to yield protection. The topic is brought up here because posters argue that due to the commitment required by ED, colleges favor it in interest of yield protection. I am doubtful about whether most college applicants have the slightest clue what a school's yield protection stat might be and, therefore I am skeptical that colleges care about it that much. On the other hand, I am similarly sure that a significant number of posters in this forum have the yield protection numbers of the top 50 colleges memorized.