This is a great thread. I’d like to put my support behind these ideas:
<li> IB forum</li>
<li> Athletics forum</li>
<li> More forums on Majors (Arts, music, theatre, business, architecture, engineering, and other are rather limiting)</li>
<li> Common App forum</li>
<li> Tier 3 & 4 schools (We just toured Coastal Carolina last week to see where niece will attend. But there’s no place on CC to report how impressed we were.)</li>
<li> FAFSA forum<br></li>
Thanks for askin’. 
I haven’t read through all of the posts, but my vote would be for a student/parent loan section. Many of us will incur loans…It would be helpful to get somebody else’s opinion on Bank A vs Bank B vs whatever for Stafford Loans. Not to mention the whold consolidation question.
This is a separate issue from Financial Aid.
Athletic forum with sub headings for Div I, II/III, Club, inter-mural, a non Div I athletic talent can still give a tip at admissions in some cases, so good to have a resource for that and also a place for athletic kids to talk to each other and figure out how to stay active if they are not pursuing intercollegiate sports, how to work it into their schedule when it is not specified by the HS & coach.
Student loan info sub-forum seems like a great idea, comparing loan dispersal terms etc, so kids can protect themselves and get a good deal.
Non famous, non prestigious schools with merit aid, personal attention, etc. After many years on this board I knew how to find them, but since they are a smaller population on CC than the HPYS applicant crowd it would be great to help people pursuing that education see more options; to help those who come here with stars in their eyes about “my kid worked hard, let’s go to the “best” school” and have the humbling experience of seeing some of the stellar stats here needs to be directed to threads with info that really helps them determine what it best for their student and their wallet.
I strongly support the creation of an affirmative action subforum in the College Admissions forum to replace the policy of merging all AA threads with the Ethnic Self-Identification FAQ. This would eliminate the clutter while keeping questions organized and easily accessible. Posters requested a Common App subforum for many of the same reasons, and Roger Dooley has agreed to create one. Go to <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/community-forum-issues/533638-what-s-policy-about-affirmative-action-threads.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/community-forum-issues/533638-what-s-policy-about-affirmative-action-threads.html</a> to express your own thoughts on the creation of an AA subforum.
Community College Forums. Lets be inclusive to all.
I also think that a community college section would be good.
Also, if there were a way to organize the thoughts in the very long but very interesting “colleges known for good merit aid” thread, that would be great.
We’re studying all of these suggestions… One note on new forums - we try to only start a new forum when there has been a critical mass of discussion in the general forum about that topic. Individual college forums in particular can languish - we don’t want to start a forum that has only sporadic activity. That leads, among other things, to a member posting a question and getting no replies - that’s something we try to avoid at all cost.
Perhaps a section on private colleges with a strong religious affiliation, sub-divided by affiliation (Jesuit, etc.).
How about a forum for Northeastern small LACs? Seems like everyone’s always looking for those, and then we start to dredge 'em all up . . .
IB subforum por favor.
I agree with the suggestion of having a subforum under the main testing forum devoted to the IB tests, especially now that IB test scores can be self-reported on the Common Application.
I would really like to see a forum for athletics. We would be able to discuss issues with NCAA rules, recruitment, scholarships, delaing with coaches, balancing academics with your sport once at college, all kinds of questions come up, and right now they are scattered all over CC.