So, I’ve been on this site for a while, and I always notice a lot of commenters quoting the OP or other commenters in little gray boxes. How is this done? Also, I saw somebody use a yellow box for the first time today? How does THAT work??
Thank you so much for tolerating my incompetence and curiosity! 
Before the quoted text, put [ quote ] and after the text, put [ /quote ] but leave out the spaces.
I don’t know about the yellow box. Can you include a link to it?
@MaineLonghorn Thank you so much! Here I’ll try:
Link: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19441145/#Comment_19441145
Where you use “quote” to quote text, substitute the word “code” to get the yellow background. Don’t know why!
Testing
@MaineLonghorn Haha… thank you so much! I feel like a ~real~ CC-er now!
[ bold ] testing [ /bold ]
testing
Bold is just [ b ]
i still can’t figure out the grey box thing. Do you have to copy and paste the desired quote into the reply box, then add brackets?
@lindagaf [ quote]copy and paste text here[ /quote]
No space after the first brackets. So, whether you type in the brackets first then copy and paste, or copy and paste, then insert the brackets does not matter.
[ quote ]Use the square brackets around the word quote as shown minus the spaces.
[ /quote ]Then close the box with /quote in the square brackets as shown without the spaces.
Okay, I actually have to type the word “quote” and enclose it in brackets, then paste the actual quote and do the same at the other end?
[quote]
Aha! Got it! Thanks, @skieurope . Seems like I managed the even cooler double secret gray box.
On another note, how do I tag someone and still put in punctuation? For example, if I don’t leave a space after your name, it won’t tag you, becasue skieurope doesn’t have a period at the end.
I just skip a space after the user name. On a related note, to tag a user that has a space in the user name, add quotes before the @ and at the end on the name. e.g. " @Erin’s Dad" (without the space after the quote).