Thanks for including me, @Lindagaf. I think this is a GREAT idea.
I do agree with @thumper1 that this could get really long quite quickly, but CC is just an amazing repository of information. The 4+ years I have spent here have made me so much more knowledgeable about education in the US (and around the world).
@CC_Jon, we love CC to bits, but as noted above, the search engine needs to be improved. I have trouble finding stuff that I have posted or that I know exists. It takes far too much search time to find things. IMO, that should be improved ASAP no matter what.
But the idea of FAQ is still a great one. Rather than have a narrative FAQ with lots of text and a requirement to be updated, have basically a map with links pointing to CC fora where people can find the information themselves? Perhaps there can be a short paragraph for each link. Going with a full narrative FAQ will take a lot of time, with a lot of caveats/exceptions, and will need to be maintained. With a short description and links, the FAQ will maintain itself.
Maybe you can sub-categorize them with drop downs. For example, “What to look for on a college website” could include
Net Price Calculator
Common Data Set
Most recent admitted student profile
Types of Admissions (SCEA, REA, EA, ED, RD, rolling)
Admission dates and deadlines
Admission requirements (courses, tests, essays, LOR)
Financial Aid and Scholarships - especially what the difference is between merit and need based aid
Another category could be something to do with how to search, edit, like, change name, link, quote, PM, etc. on CC
Another category could be commonly used abbreviations on CC and in college admissions
I think the FAQ page should be a list with links to each one - perhaps with a statement for each, but not long reading.
The most common things I see at school are:
Kids wondering when to start with everything (a real timeline, not just deadlines) - when to start looking, when to take the SAT/ACT, when to apply, when to look for scholarships, etc
Kids/parents being clueless about the cost or assuming there are scholarships out there that will cover essentially everything - or that they will/can take loans for it all
Kids/parents thinking because their GPA/SAT is in the range for the school means they will be admitted
Kids not understanding Pre-med - lots of questions with this from Pre-med being a major to needing to go to a college with a med school (both no by the way) to not realizing the implications of taking cc courses while in high school (grades will count, and not all med schools are ok with pre-reqs from cc)
Kids not understanding that some schools don’t let you get specific about an engineering field until after you’ve been there for a year, others do
ETA: Forgot a biggie - the difference between state schools and private, and the difference between IS and OOS for the state schools, esp as it relates to admission and cost for both average students and top students
I really like the idea of sub-categories that are linked.
Beyond that there is a need for the definition of the types of colleges, like “flagship”, “public research”, directional", and all the other types, but with the common names used here and elsewhere, not the Carnegie Classifications.
In the category of “What to do after admission decisions are released”
If Admitted:
Evaluate financial aid/merit.
Admitted student days or general visit/tour
Virtual info sessions
Housing dates, deadlines and deposits
SIR - deadline, only one school, deposit if you are still on waitlist at other schools
Orientation dates
Registering for classes
Deferred - LOCI, send transcripts, follow all directions
If waitlisted: make sure you SIR at another school
While the topics suggested above are all relevant topics that are often discussed, I agree with @thumper1, @mynameiswhatever and others that the FAQ needs to be short with a short description of each topic covered with a link or reference to more detailed threads.
Often it seems the same topic is covered multiple times with moderators having to combine threads when separate threads on the same topic are discussed at the same time. I do think a longer term solution involves reorganizing how the topics are laid out in a more hierarchical structure with categories and subcategories (and subsub categories). Right now the organization is pretty flat. I like the idea about taking an area like college admissions and breaking it into component steps .
As part of this, I wonder if there is enough AI in the system to use prompts and subprompts so that when a user starts a thread, it puts the topic in the relevant area. If the topic headlines are imbedded with key words/terms, it should make the search function more user friendly and likely to be relevant.
I would rank fixing the search function WAY above creating a FAQ.
If I type “Financial Aid” in the search function, I should be taken to the Paying for College forum, not a series of random threads from 2021. If I sort to view latest post (rather than relevance), it starts with the UC Davis admit thread, followed by the Syracuse admit thread. The first post in Paying for College is 14th on the list and its title is “Employer Tuition Remission”
Edit: You can’t sort how to view the search results unless you click “view more.” That should be changed.
Personally, my most efficient way of searching CC is to Google “College Confidential Financial Aid.” Google takes me to the right section (Paying for College) much more efficiently than the CC search function does.
Thinking about financial aid only….I think you could easily have a few separate FAQ sections.
Applying for financial aid which would include looking at college websites, doing NPCs, and info about the FAFSA and Profile, and college specific forms. And something about schools that meet full need for all vs schools that don’t. Discussing budget with family.
Considering financial aid offers…could include info about net costs, merit vs need based aid, loans, comparing offers amongst schools, asking for reconsideration of an aid package, etc.
I personally think a section devoted to international student financial aid could have its own set of FAQ.
Personally I think having a more robust search function would solve a lot of issues, especially for people using their phones. I was trying to edit a post that was in the wrong forum this morning and the entire “international” category didn’t come up, and now that the forums aren’t alphabetical, it was very difficult to find.
I also think we need to clean up the old the threads, and have a note to new users not to respond to threads that haven’t had any activity for a year or more.
THIS. Very often info in these older threads is no longer applicable…and/or the posters haven’t been on CC forever.
There used to be an auto close for anything over six months not posted on….wasn’t there? What happened to that?
Also…who exactly will be doing these FAQ pages? They will need to be reviewed and updated annually at least. And perhaps they should be no response threads. Otherwise, you will be getting a LOT of different kinds queries on them.
Totally agree. Also, to me an FAQ page consists of basic questions with short, usually definitive answers. The interesting and most informative threads usually are a collection of opinions, usually very different. Instead of having a traditional FAQ page, perhaps time and effort are better spent on a guide with references or links, which would be especially helpful to new users. Better yet (or maybe in addition to), a search function that prompts to narrower topics as you see in Google searches would help quite a bit.
Please please don’t make me have to use anything related to Google to search this forum. Please.
IOW…if I have to use Google to do a search here…I’m not going to do that.
Already, one can put in some search questions into Google and sometimes CC threads DO pop up.
What we need is a search function on THIS site that works. I have typed in the exact name of a thread and the search function has NOT turned up that thread. It’s happened numerous times. This just shouldn’t happen.
That’s what an integrated custom Google search engine does. You don’t have to go to Google - the search bar is right here on CC. It’s just that it uses Google’s search capabilities (which are objectively very good) behind the scenes to power the search on this website.
Currently when I want to use Google search on CC, I go to Google and restrict results to CC (site:collegeconfidential.com). Would these be the search results given by integrated Google search?
That’s only if you use the free version. You can pay a modest fee for a completely ad-free version.
The integrated version can be customized, so it’s supposed to be better. Beyond that, I don’t know.
By the way folks, I’m not advocating for Google. It’s just something that came to mind as possibly a not too difficult way to significantly improve CC’s search engine. There are probably other search engines that could be used.