Just curious.
Heck no
No I don’t recommend CC to my own kid. I hope my kid never gets on CC
D1 found CC before I did. It stressed her out tremendously, but we learned a lot and it led us to find the school she ultimately chose. D2 is staying far away from this place for her own good. She knows herself well enough to know it would only give her anxiety. Anything we need to learn from here, I can take care of.
No. My kid knows exactly what he wants to do, he was an excellent student in HS, and we have the means to send him to a great 4-year school far away.
Not diminishing CC. One of his closest friends is making that choice becasue of his mix of skills and talents (basically he is a great programmer and doesn’t want to give up his growing local reputation to study god knows what).
No way.
I’m planning to show my kid a couple of threads on here, but I doubt she’ll make an account and start posting, and I wouldn’t push for that.
No. I don’t recommend it to most other parents, either.
No. It would add unnecessary stress. They’re less cynical so less able to separate the BS from the helpful nuggets.
It’s a good outlet for me as a parent to read and “discuss” college issues without boring or stressing out my kids or friends. I don’t think my kids would get the same benefit.
Plus, there’s the little matter of my oldest son being intensely private; if he discovered I have discussed him in any sort of public forum he might try to kill me. So, no… I don’t recommend cc to my kids. I’d like to live.
nope
No to CC the board, it’s my little secret. Yes to CC the learning institution.
No way…why cause stress!? While you can find out a lot of useful objective information, there is way too much subjective smack talk from “rankings obsessed” types that constantly put down any college that is not in the Top 100 like no other factors at all matter in the choice that is really the best FIT for the student!!
My kids both knew about CC, but as far as I know neither wanted to get sucked in by it. I did send them links to things I thought they should read. They trusted me to distill stuff for them. I’m pretty sure the older kid read some posts in the Carnegie Mellon thread, and I sent him a PM from the son of one of the poster’s whose son had visited and attended some classes. (My kid didn’t visit until accepted student’s weekend.) I think I also passed along some essay writing advice. Neither of them were ranking obsessed - they applied to selective colleges, but neither ended up at the highest ranked college that accepted them.
Just noodling on some more reasons I wouldn’t want my kids spending much time here:
- The puffery (that's the PC term for it) from many of the students "asking" for advice gives a skewed perspective of what other students are doing. My very human, acceptably flawed kid did just fine in the admissions process but if he'd spent a few days reading here, he might have thought he'd only be a viable candidate for community college. I am a huge supporter of community college and it might be the path my younger kid starts with, but it would not have been the right place for the oldest son to start.
- Over time, reading the same things - especially regarding ECs - might impact their creativity. When one reads the same activities over and over and over and over, it's easy to start to think of those as the only options. Possibly because we've never pushed any particular activity, they've both experimented with interesting and unique things. Some have been busts and some have been awesome, but all have been good experiences and helped them figure out who they might like to develop into. I don't want them to read here too long and start thinking with the herd that they have to choose between piano and violin and that they're doomed because they didn't join MUN or win a science Olympiad. They're interesting people and I'd like to keep them that way. I don't think that will be a disadvantage for college admissions, but if it is, I'm OK with that outcome. They'll be OK.
I was introduced to CC a couple of years ago by my oldest, who was obsessively/pointlessly/unhealthily speculating with other applicants here about ED announcement dates at her school of choice. I’m not sure she used it for much else, and it took me quite a while to realize there was so much more to the Forum. That being said, I don’t think I would send my younger children here, as I suspect they would find the atmosphere stressful and overwhelming. I’m happy to share carefully selected info with them from time-to-time though!
“I don’t want them to read here too long and start thinking with the herd that they have to choose between piano and violin and that they’re doomed because they didn’t join MUN”
@milee30…aside from the “puffery” that is pretty constant, I do remember being in Model United Nations way back in the day for a while…represented Lesotho… a very small enclaved country completely surrounded by South Africa…don’t remember speaking a word at that conference…definitely NOT doomed if you are not in MUN lol!
I did share the classic “Clam Fart” with them and they enjoyed it. 
For you newbies:
But otherwise, they think CC is silly, but I believe they did check out reddit for similar topics. They think CC is parents that want to post 34 times in 3 threads that their kid attends Stanford, Harvard, etc., or kids panicking because they now have a 4.65 instead of a 4.67.
They would never seek answers on here (although a lot of students apparently do), and they contacted their GC or the college for specific questions they had, that we couldn’t answer ourselves through a little research of the school’s site.
The “chance me” threads alone are a reason for high school kids to stay away. They had my D1 convinced she wasn’t going to get in anywhere! Honestly, when I started reading here, before I knew anything about anything, those threads scared the wits out of me too.
Agree on the chance me threads. That seems to be the least helpful area and the place that engenders the most puffery. If cc were to ask what changes could be made to improve the user experience, here’s what I’d suggest:
- Eliminate the "chance me" section. Contains very little helpful information.
- Combine all the colleges into the "College and Universities" section. No need for a separate "Ivy League" section or having "CC Top Universities" listed separately. List all the colleges under the alphabetical scheme.
@milee30 I’m not sure that I would eliminate the chance me threads although I pretty much hate them. They are at least a way for kids to hear from veteran posters about the unbalanced nature of their lists and the need for safety schools. For some kids, its the only place they are given this information.
I might want to replace them with a “how realistic is my list” forum.