<p>Earlier this spring, I read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about CC. There is much more in the article about the college side of CC than the prep side, but some of the issues are crossover. </p>
<p>College</a> Confidential: A Field Guide - Students - The Chronicle of Higher Education</p>
<p>Any interest in discussion? How about observations that, upon reflection on the article's contents, would serve to elevate our opinions and discussions as prep parents?</p>
<p>A follow up to the article by the author relates the comments of one of CCās founders, David Hawsey. </p>
<p>[One</a> of College Confidentialās Founders Says Site āTurned Sourā - Head Count - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=āhttp://chronicle.com/blogs/headcount/one-of-college-confidentials-founders-says-site-turned-sour/34897]Oneā>Head Count: One of College Confidentialās Founders Says Site āTurned Sourā)</p>
<p>Sounds familiar to those prep crowd folks engaged in the back and forth on the āhadesā, āhidden gemsā and other BS. I, for one, think the hades bias is stronger on the prep side than the HYPSM bias on the college side; it exists for understandable reasons, related mostly to the demographics of potential posters and applicants, after taking the prestige factor into account. The issue hades bias has been dealt with fairly and intelligently by prep parents, and some students. Good info is then offered up on BS in general and non-hades schools in particular. But there just is not going to be enough interested posters to get insidersā views on Tilton, Oldfields, Asheville, etc., moving discussion on these schools much past what is available on boardingschoolreview. (I know that a parent or other interested party occasionally chimes in on these schools.) Itās hard to find a fix for this weakness of the prep CC.</p>
<p>I found the direction of the critique interesting, as it mostly seemed to focus on the things many of us have found problematic about CC: the chances thread and racist or attack threads which are generally shut down pretty quickly, at least on this forum. </p>
<p>I do think that jumping on to CC solely to get an inside track into admissions is pretty useless. However, there are so many other people here for so many other reasons; as usual, the article only tells one small part of the story.</p>
<p>I love our little boarding school community on CC, but Iām not sure Iām going to be up for diving into the cold, deep ocean of the college boards when the time comes. It seems like you could be on there 24/7, and the potential to end up highly irritated seems vast.</p>
<p>Iāve jumped in a bit, and the seems to be to find the right forum. The parents threads that Iāve investigated seem to have lots of good practical information about things like best ways to get your kid to and from a particular school. The threads where everyone miraculously reports their 800 on the chem SATII test however, are another story.</p>
<p>As DS gears up for college applications, I have been migrating to the college forum. The neuroticness & mean-spiritedness of the college forum makes me appreciate deeply the friendliness of our prep school forum community. :)</p>
<p>I didnāt find CC until after DD had been accepted to boarding school, so maybe Iāll take the same approach and stay off the college portions until weāve passed the admissions process. But I do suspect that the financial aid and logistic information about planning visits could be really helpful.</p>
<p>One problematic situation is that many people have no access to college advising other than CC.</p>