<p>Has anyone's child based their choice of college on how interesting the people on that college's forum seem to be?
College rankings and other schemes are often based on derived data. People tend to have heard of famous schools. College X is famous therefore it must be good. Last year the largest group of uninformed teenagers applied to college Y therefore college Y must be good. Many of these rankings tend to be self-perpetuating. I would like to suggest another possible selection factor: how interesting the kids who post on CC seem to be. Of course the kids would have to look at last years posts to see who actually got in and if they chose to go. There would be a sampling error because of the small number of students posting. Perhaps some of the regular student posters like Xiggi or Ungst might comment on whether CC influenced them in this fashion.</p>
<p>My kids were never into the whole forum posting thing, so they wouldn't have been influenced by CC. But I have noticed a decided difference in tone among different college threads. </p>
<p>If I were picking a college based on the quality of the online postings, I'd opt for U of Chicago.</p>
<p>haha That thought never occured to me when I was choosing colleges. I think that's probably a good thing.</p>
<p>^^^corranged, you are one of the impressive UChicago posters.</p>
<p>I look only at the threads of those schools my son is considering. Of those, U Chicago would win easily, using this method.</p>
<p>I like the kids on the MIT and Caltech forums, but there have been some posts by kids at Caltech that reinforce some of my notions about it being a little too small and inbred. Harvard forum is really depressing. Seems dominated by kids who just want the name. Stanford seems pleasant but a little dull except for outbreaks of arguments about whether they have better engineering than MIT. C-M was so dull I hardly ever read it! RPI and WPI just don't get much traffic. Harvey Mudd seems to have an interesting bunch of rah rah supporters, but not too much interesting conversation.</p>
<p>I concur about the Harvard forum. At one point, I seriously thought, "If these are the kids who will be going to Harvard, I don't want to go there." So much of it is just random kids who are curious for a taste of an Ivy pedigree who know very little about the actual school. Almost all the Ivy League forums have a lot of nervous tension/countdown/I will die if I don't get in threads. I remember the countdown clocks that people set up with # of seconds down to D-Day made waiting sooo much worse.</p>
<p>But I think a lot of the unimpressive kids who populate the Harvard Forum end up not getting in. I am very impressed by Harvard alumni such as Northstarmom and Hanna, Harvard parents such as coureur, and current Harvard students such as xjayz. As in most other things in life, not all posts in that forum put Harvard in a good light, but it is one of my favorite forums on CC for interesting reading nonetheless. I also like the forums of Caltech (especially posts by Ben Golub) and MIT (especially posts by the MIT bloggers and some of the admitted applicants). One college that I think is ill-served (as to reputation) by its forum here is Stanford. I'm very well impressed by Stanford, but the forum has WAY too many chances threads, and way too little description of student life there, as I just said in a thread on that forum. A guy from my town with some interests in common with my son attends Stanford, and his personal blog is much more interesting reading than what has so far usually been posted on the Stanford Forum.</p>
<p>I don't think the quality of the discourse on college blogs here is fair indicator of college life at schools I know very well. LACs in particular often have "dead zone" CC blogs but great college worlds. </p>
<p>One thing that has influenced me however, is the presence of a gracious Dean of Admissions staffer on a blog. I warmed up to JHU after Admissions Daniel appeared and found MIT less intimidating after they put up an Adcom on their CC blog. We have Dean J at our own UVa web CC blog to deal with the usual UVa questions..instate vs OOS..the saga continues.</p>
<p>I also like the postive parent or alum reps on CC blogs and particularly the alum have altered my views of schools. Globalist at UVa has a lot of credibility for instance in my book and Sybbie is a great "host" figure at Dartmouth. </p>
<p>So many kid posts are just anxiety driven but I know they blossom once admitted and settled.</p>
<p>Neither of my sons looked at CC or any other board--but their peers were well informed. They read the PR Best 350 and chose initial schools based on the student population descriptions.</p>
<p>It wouldn't occur to my sons to post on CC or any other adult chat forum--unless it was specific to their professional interests. Wouldn't be prudent--in their minds. And they'd be right.</p>
<p>MarDad, a while back someone suggested ranking the colleges by a per capita post count--take the number of posts, divide by the number of undergrads--as a quick and dirty way of making a priority list of colleges. It would still semi-perpetuate some stereotypes but some surprises would stand out.</p>
<p>I also once spoofed the rules for a ranking system and something like Rule #8 was "If Harvard is not #1, set Havard = #1 and move all other schools down accordingly." </p>
<p>Also, "Whatever Washington & Lee is ranked, dropped its rankings five spots just because I don't like it's Greek/alcohol profile," just to show how arbitrary rankings are.</p>
<p>TD, I'm sure you've noticed that Smith has some interesting and intelligent posts. Among the Ivies I have found my interest wandering from college to college.</p>
<p>The USN&WR rankings remind me of the function of the chain in a football game. After each of two successive plays the position of the ball is eyeballed by the refs. If a first down is in doubt the chain crew comes out and takes measurements between the two points that are more accurate than the two points were to begin with. In like fashion the USNWR looks at fuzzy numbers then generates a ranking with more precision than the opinions upon which it is based.
The Laissez-Faire ranking reminds me of Paris Hilton whose every move is reported because she is famous. "Famous for being famous" I believe is the quote. The LF ranking looks at what ill-informed teenagers wanted last year to determine what they should want this year. If the fashion or music industries worked the same way our children would be wearing clothes from Carnaby Street. (Actually some of the clothes I've seen recently have a familiar feel to them.)</p>
<p>Thank you, Midmo! :)</p>
<p>Awww Faline2, that's really sweet. I'm glad I'm helpful. Because of work, I can't always contribute to CC, but I find myself getting withdrawal symptoms if I stay away for too long. Why is CC so addicting?</p>
<p>The fact that many colleges don't have forums to post on makes it hard to get a read on the quality of the students there.</p>
<p>My kids never read any of the CC posts unless I sent a link or cut and pasted something interesting to them. In the general student sections there are way too many kids interested in gaming the system of obssessed with the rankings of schools. My kids didn't hang out with those kids IRL, and I doubt they would have liked them in virtual life either.</p>
<p>If students decided to apply to Brown based on the Brown forum here, there would be few applicants. They seem to ask the same questions over and over and over again (mainly, OMG I didn't get called for an interview yet!)</p>
<p>I think you'd have more success going to college's livejournal communities. Or facebook. I know many kids have started College XYZ 2011 groups on facebook.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Harvey Mudd seems to have an interesting bunch of rah rah supporters, but not too much interesting conversation.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hmm...We must fix this. What kind of convo would you like to see more of? We seek feedback! I direct this question not just to mathmom, but to all posters.</p>
<p>I only follow MIT & Caltech, tho do occasional searches for friends. I keep thinking I'll stop spending time on CC and read more, but then I get hooked by some of the kids and want to follow their progress. Its really been fun to put faces on the Caltech writers; actual people are even more more interesting than their comments.</p>
<p>Thanks so much...</p>
<p>Just trying to pay it forward. On the Dartmouth board Wisconsinguy & Slipper are such a great ambassadors for Dartmouth and were so welcoming and helpful before my D was even a student (I am going to miss WG who is graduating this year and I would still like to believe that Slipper was my D's alumni interviewer) I feel like I have this really hard act to follow just to keep up with them. I must admit, even though my kid is an 8, I've really got a soft spot for some of the 9's who are CC posters ;)</p>
<p>There are a number of posters (both parents and students) that I think really do their school proud in addition to some of those already mentioned, cruchycereal, Jrpar and momrath from the Williams board (you would think I would be over them by now but they are still one of my favorite schools) Pebbles and MollieB, Hazmat, Bluedevilmike and boy can I go on. I think faline would be my roommate as she's always willing to take me in from the cold and sees the best in me.</p>
<p>I'll say this, if I could go to college with any CC posters, blossom,sluggbugg, sb, mootie, jmmom, jym, bhappy and the sinners alley gang would top my list (I love marite, cangel and soozie, but these women cater to by wild side and blossom is good at doling out that common sense). How could you not want to hang out with people with names like ellemenope, momofwildchild and lefthandofdog!! Thedad and his "johnny depp" look would give me the vapors, mini would definitely raise my social consciousness, jhs, courer, xiggi, rorosen & curmie would keep him honest and dstark would make me a rich woman reminding me not to squander money.</p>
<p>As I have said before, my kids regard CC as evil (too much of the Ivy forums, I think).</p>
<p>I know, however, that reading and participating in livejournal interest groups was a big part of my daughter's final consideration of the places that had accepted her. Although it wasn't exactly a random group of students and prospective students at any school, it tended to be a group that had things in common with her. She "met" dozens of students at each school that way, chatted with them, and listened to them talk among themselves. I know she was impressed with the tone and depth of the Chicago groups (and in some cases with the lack of tone or depth elsewhere), and she felt much more "at home" there than in other schools' groups. It would be a mistake to say she chose Chicago because of them -- after all, she had applied to Chicago EA before really paying attention to them -- but they made her feel much more comfortable about her choice. At the time, I thought about writing to the admissions office and saying, "You know, you have a fabulous resource out there, maybe you should use it." But I didn't.</p>