Thursday's Most Active Threads

The Gaza war thread continued as the most active thread again yesterday with just over 500 new posts. That's fewer than we've been seeing so maybe interest is starting to slow. The next most active thread after that one was titled, "In your circle how old are the oldest parents" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster, who became a parent at 40, says that she feels like an outlier among her circle of friends, Most of them started families 7 years or so earlier than her. The first poster to respond assured the original poster that she would not be an outlier in DC-proper and that she knew several parents in the original poster's age-group. This highlights a phenomenon that I've witnessed on DCUM over the years. Within DCUM's original demographic which was heavily biased toward relatively affluent White women, becoming parents at what many might consider an older age was not uncommon. But, outside that demographic, and especially outside the DC area, new parents tended to be younger. For years it was common for young moms on DCUM to complain that they were outliers. But, as the demographics of DCUM users have changed over the years, the opposite situation, as in this thread, has become more common. It is unfortunate that these threads often turn acrimonious. In the case of this thread, responses were mostly straight-forward and simply answering the original poster's question. But, fairly quickly, one poster warned about "ageism" and "jealousy" that might be demonstrated on DCUM. This was soon followed by a poster alleging that this thread was "designed to pump up over-the-hill moms", more or less fullfiling the earlier poster's prediction. But, despite this early contention, the thread more or less went back to posters simply providing the ages of parents in their social groups or their own ages. I didn't run a tally of the ages being reported, but based on my perception, DCUM still slants in the favor of older moms. Though some posters are fairly quick to point out that DCUM is not necessarily representative even of all of DC, let alone areas beyond.

The next most active thread was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum and is titled, "SAT/ACT single most predictive factor at Yale". If someone were to ask ChatGPT to create a topic for DCUM's college forum that is guaranteed to attract responses, I am fairly certain that it would come up with a topic that combined standardized tests with Ivy League admissions. But, despite the click-bait nature of this thread's title, the original poster has taken a very substantive approach. The original poster described a podcast hosted by Dartmouth’s Dean of Admission who interviewed Yale’s Dean of Admission. At both schools, SAT/ACT scores have been found to be more predictive of academic success than high school transcripts. A criticism of standardized tests has been that wealthier families can afford preparation courses and multiple retakes of the exams. As such, scores are believed to be biased against underrepresented minorities. But, according to the original poster, both Deans look for scores that might be low relative to most applicants but are from what the original poster calls "underresourced backgrounds". The Deans have found that these scores show ability when viewed in context. However, because the schools are test-optional, the Deans are concerned that these students might not be submitting test scores. Therefore, the original poster predicts that the schools may return to requiring test scores or at least strongly encouraging test scores to be submitted. One of those responding who also listened to the podcast emphasized a point that the original poster had made, but went a bit further. The Deans said that test scores help with an initial screen of applicants, but after that the scores are no longer part of the admissions conversation. This poster, in contrast to the original poster's prediction that tests might not remain optional, reported one of the Dean's belief that test optional admissions are here to stay. This thread seems to have kept discourse to a high level and I didn't notice the normal "test optional is a way to admit less qualified minorities" type of responses. Instead, posters discussed how this information might impact application strategies. There seemed to be general agreement that test scores should be seen as a means to clear a threshold but otherwise not a particularly important admissions component. My understanding that the threshold is relative to the perceived advantages or lack thereof of the applicants is an interesting twist and one that didn't seem to provoke much, if any, negative reaction. To the contrary, the suggestion that this might, as one poster put it, weed out "privileged over-counseled blood suckers" met with some approval.

Third was a thread titled, "Whoa FCPS- data breach" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. I think this is a hugely important topic and that the original poster was absolutely correct to create a thread about it. However, I really wish the poster had put more effort into creating a substantive post that could have provided more useful information. As it was, the poster simply linked to an article and said, "This is a nice way to start the morning." The story is about a massive data leak involving current and former special education students within the Fairfax County Public Schools system. According to the article, published by "The74" — a website of which I had previously not heard but apparently is a non-profit covering education issues — the data identifies students by name and includes "letter grades, disability status and mental health data." Amazingly, the data was provided to Callie Oettinger, who is described as a long-time critic of FCPS data protection procedures. FCPS has admitted the disclosure and has launched an external investigation. Oettinger has also published the documents on her website in what she says is partially redacted form. Many of those responding, including at least one self-described parent of a student with special needs, are glad that Oettinger has exposed FCPS's mishandling of sensitive data. But, others consider Oettinger to be almost as bad as FCPS since she has appeared to have shared at least some of the data with other parents and then published it. These posters believe that Oettinger should have promptly returned the data once she realized the error. Much of the thread is more a debate about Oettinger than the data disclosure itself. Oettinger apparently has quite a track record of wrecking havoc on schools with constant demands for meetings and requests for documents. One poster who identified herself as a teacher who had a very contentious meeting with Oettinger and had little love for her. This provoked a number of posters to take issue with the teacher. Some posters expect that parents of kids that receive special education services and, hence, had their data disclosed will now sue the school system. Given the significant number of lawsuits in which this could result, there is concern about the financial impact. As such, some posters suggested that these parents might instead advocate that the money be used to provided better data security.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. Titled, "If 45+ and you had a chance to talk to your 38-year-old self, what would you say?", the original poster says that yesterday was her birthday and she would love to know what advice others would give. Most of the replies either advise the original poster to either take pride in her body and looks or to make dietary, exercise, or skin care changes to protect her looks and health. There is also quite a bit of marriage advice, encouragement to have a third child, and a bit of career advice. Probably the single most recommended activity was weight training. There were also a few tongue-in-cheek replies about which stocks to buy given the hypothetical discussions were supposed to be taking place in 2008. Some posters  appeared to have done considerably better than others in the years since they were 38 and, hence, the advice is considerably different. Advice not to marry seems come from a number of posters who experienced failed marriages. A number of posters encouraged the original poster to do things that they regret not having undertaken. All in all the thread is quite repetitive. Probably useful for those in the original poster's age category, but not much of interest to those of us in a, let's say, more mature age bracket.