New improved hidden gem list as of spring 2016

Oh, and @mclmom, welcome to Mercersburg!

I always agree with @PhotographerMom (mostly so she doesn’t hop in her car and drive over to my house to set me straight). But, I think the overemphasis on a handful of schools is due to not having school-specific sub-forums like the main board has. If we could segregate the blather, newcomers could avoid the immediate impression that only a handful of schools are worthy of a look and everyone else could more easily tune in to/avoid the choir of their choice.

And can we all stop using those acronyms, even if its an easy reference? It’s amazing how, even though its just a thing known to this CC forum, each year the newbies pick it up and use it as it gets propagated from one application season to the next. Let’s let them die out as they only add to the mystique of certain schools. Just say no to acronyms! :slight_smile:

@choatiemom I have lobbied for school specific threads… without success. I agree with you!

@doschicos I’m in! NMA (No More Acronyms) for me. :smiley:

@panpacific I get it. ‘Hidden in plain sight’, ‘under our noses’, and ‘at the tail end’… Funny :slight_smile: . Of course, for me and the rest of the newbies, all the letters of Hades and Gladchemms are mystifying, a coded language that signifies more about time with CC than any desirability of particular schools. I’d have to go to those ‘what does it mean’ posts to get all the names right. And, no, no need to list out the names again on my behalf. /:slight_smile:

I was just jumping on your bandwagon, @london203.

And I tried to start a movement to ban acros that was, obviously, unsuccessful:

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-parents/1251453-ban-the-term-hades-p1.html

I agree with banning the acronyms…and I still don’t know what schools are in HADES and GLADCHEMMS.

School - specific threads would be very helpful!

As one who spends more time on the college threads these days, I will tell you that is not the solution. While each of these schools has a separate forum, you’d be surprised (or maybe not) by the number of “Chance Me” to HYPMS.

I wasn’t implying that posters know how to use sub-forums, ski, only that if the buckets are created, there is a convenient place to segregate errant threads. :wink:

Oh, OK, @ChoatieMom Now I understand better. :slight_smile:

One would hope (I know, I know) that the prep school kids would use the special chances sub forum… but I can absolutely see how school-specific threads could descend into that madness.

Here is a new idea for the suggestion box: ban all chances posts! :smiley: LOL

I could’ve said the hidden gem thread contains all schools except “Groton, Lawrenceville, Deerfield…” instead of referencing the widely hated acronym, but I did tell the truth about that thread didn’t I? And I think that was silly. No one should be criticized or belittled for making a school choice of their own whether the choice is a big name school or a hidden gem or something else, but it’s one thing to criticize others’ choices and it’s another to justify their own. If someone believes XYZ are the best colleges in the world, it’s their belief. You can have a different set of belief. But why “ban” anything at all if it’s not against the CC rules? I am thinking that there’s a chance that by concerted effort, an acronym free and all-schools-are-equal world can be made on here, but is that any closer to the reality? I bet everyone is used to and rarely gets offended by talking about the real estate market in referencing great schools, above-average schools and poor schools because there are good public schools and bad public schools and everything in between. Why is it any less true with private schools? Now, I agree that to a certain degree school is what one makes of it, and that a school that is the best for one may not be the best for the next, but comments and comparison of schools in relative terms have been and will be made. How about let’s live with different opinions, ignore, like, support, counter argue, criticize… as we see fit, and let the messy democracy roll without talking about “ban”.

@panpacific I can see that you took my tongue-in-cheek “ban” more seriously than I intended. My apologies. I think most people who know my posts would say that I am open-minded and that I try (oh how I try) to lighten things up around here…

@london203 I actually didn’t have you in mind when I made that “counter-argument”. I had to go back and confirmed that more than one posters supported the “ban” and didn’t sound quite like a joke to me, but I “liked” your post as the other 4 (so far) for your “open-mindedness”.

@panpacific Are you referring to the suggestion to not use acronyms referring to the most talked about schools? It’s merely a suggestion, nothing formal. I just never use them because I think the whole thing is silly and I do think its impressionable on the young students who come to this forum, and my kids went to a school represented in both of the acronyms frequently used.

@doschicos I respect your opinion. And I understand there would probably not a “formal ban” of acronyms. What I was arguing against was this sentiment that some opinions were so wrong that they should be “pre-disqualified”. In my view, we should be more used to agreeing to disagree. One can always provide counter arguments or simply choose the “silent treatment” when they read something they strongly disagree.

I didn’t read that tone in any of the posts on this thread, @panpacific, but my apologies if my post made you feel that way. I saw this more of a thread to discuss ways to encourage people to look at schools beyond the obvious, well known candidates. My post wasn’t written as a personal attack or written in response to any of your posts, just a general statement that I believe referencing the acronym schools all the time via those very acronyms gives them more weight on this forum. No one outside of this forum even uses those references. For some new, impressionable 13/14 year old coming on here, just seeing them used repeatedly sends a message and gives them weight, IMO.

@doschicos. Indeed. That was exactly my point. Short-hand for some translates into an ‘oh, I didn’t know that some were part of a special, more desirable club’ for a newbie like me. Yes, there are those who only apply to Andover and Exeter, and would only go to those schools, whether due to their name-recognition/prestige or offerings. But many of us are/were searching for a school that matches well with, as my DS said in one of his essays, ‘who I am and who I want to be’. That kind of information is hard to find, even on this forum. But there are gems of info on CC for all sorts of gems of schools. :slight_smile:

Just curious if many of you read the articles coming out on college admissions and the over-focus on Ivy League. Because the acronym eliteness feels the same as that. All the current articles explain that there are MANY excellent colleges out there. And for instance, a “hidden gem” college may be better for some fields than others.

There’s a book “Where You Go is Not Who You’ll Be” that also talks about this.

I don’t think being elitist is a positive. ALL of these schools are excellent.

FWIW, I’ve been coming here for a couple of months and still can’t figure out the acronyms (and I have an Ivy league graduate degree :wink: