New Year, New Look for College Confidential!

First of all, thank you all for the helpful comments and suggestions!

For the past 9 business days since the launch we have been actively gathering the feedback coming in and organizing it by the criticality of the need. Our first concern is to ensure that members are able to register and log in. There have been a handful of issues around this (which we expected with the size of the change), and we have been addressing those as quickly as possible. We have also addressed issues regarding email providers and the delivery of email authentication tokens (essentially the emails members receive when they register, need to change their password, etc.). These can be complicated and time consuming, and we will continue to move any issue dealing with registration and login to the top of the priority list as they arise.

Other resolutions we have tried to make the community aware of:

<li>Increased thread history to 250 pages. The Advanced Search is available to retrieve older threads. We are still reviewing this for future improvements.</li>
<li>Removed the extra title under the screen name. We will be adjusting this further in the near future as wells looking to include other member info here such as Join date, etc.</li>
<li>Adjusted the Latest Posts page so that pinned threads aren’t always at the top.</li>
<li>Fixed broken footer links.</li>
<li>Cleaned up permissions issue on flagging a post.</li>
<li>Restored missing forum and sub-forum content.</li>

Additional top priority items we continue to work on are: any identified security and stability needs (technical, backend stuff), ensuring that search engines are indexing our sites properly since we changed many URLs throughout, continued efforts to reactivate the CC mobile app, bringing the EFC calculator and Stats Profiles back online, fixing the login issues where users are redirected to the homepage upon login, and various moderation needs.

We are also currently working on the mobile browser skin pagination pains and giving users the ability to switch to desktop view and back on their devices, along with a handful of other tweaks. For the bookmarking/subscription troubles, we too feel the pain and are working on how to handle it. We are also working to restore post numbers on threads.

In regards to other concerns from the community, we hear them, and we are documenting and assessing them. We are also assessing the feasibility of the requests. Sometimes what seems like a simple request on the surface, is really more complex. We are looking at theming options (for those of you who prefer a darker screen), usability improvements, and other functional changes that will continue to make CC better, easier, and more intuitive. We will make the community aware of any progress as soon as we have news.

The fact is that we went through a major software change, which was desperately needed for a variety of security, performance, and business reasons. It’s no easy task to transition a site of our size, and we knew that there would be decisions that wouldn’t be overly popular in the first release. However, that doesn’t mean that we are ignoring or dismissing member input. We are working diligently, every day to make CC better. This was a massive, nearly year-long project with hundreds, if not thousands, of tasks and moving parts. The team working on the project was beyond passionate and went above and beyond to see it through. And they continue to do so. But they aren’t magicians … they are talented, dedicated people who work to make sure that students, parents, and families can be a part of a community that will ultimately help them be successful in their education endeavors.

We’re excited for the future of CC and hope you continue to be a part of this vibrant community. Stay tuned, as promised, we’ll continue to share updates whenever relevant! Thank you for your understanding!

Moody, thank you VERY much for this informative update. I hope folks take the time to come to this section to read it, and look forward to the changes (putting in a pitch for page numbers!).

@sally305, did not see your post.

Yes, they are connected to Hobsons.

Here is an old press release from 2011.

<a href=“http://www.hobsons.com/education-trends/news-room/media-releases/college-confidential-mobile-app-released/”>http://www.hobsons.com/education-trends/news-room/media-releases/college-confidential-mobile-app-released/&lt;/a&gt;

When I am not logged into the CC website, why is the time format in GMT? Wasn’t EST the default time before the system overhaul?

Thanks, Samurai. Anyone have any idea how to get CC working again on my iPhone or iPad? It hasn’t updated since 1/24, which I believe was the date of the migration to the new format.

In the past, I had set up new activity on selected forums to be emailed to me daily. Now, I can have it emailed to me by single message or not to be emailed at all. How can I get it daily?

^ Go to the gym.

One suggestion - the light blue font is a bit had to read for older eyes. It kind of washes away in the white background. Makes focusing on the text harder. A darker main font color or ability to change to a darker font color would be nicer on the eyes.

I understand that the blinding white background is not top priority this week, but in all honesty, I no longer scroll or scan on CC with comfort. Here it is evening, and your site continues to be glaring even though beautiful evening lighting is part of our routine. btw…I can read small print without bifocals perfectly well in my late fifties. this snow bright background color is likely a deal breaker for me. Also sometimes I will come to a thread in response to an email link, and get to that location…then sign in and I am kicked back to the main CC college discussion opening page. then you have to find the college again, then get out a magnifying glass to find what thread the new comment is on …usually I am not even motivated to go back to the discussion. I know. whine whine. ha. It is too much detective work to see what the latest posts are on a college page.

Still no pre-med topics page coming up for me, I am sure you are working on many items, but your list implies these have all been fixed.

@notrichenough- thank you!!

@moody208- thanks for taking our concerns into account! Much appreciated.

What does the # of visits mean on our profiles?

Appreciate getting frequent updates!

@somemom, can you provide us with more details on the issue? Please PM me the problem you are facing and I will pass the info on to the tech team to take a closer look.

crazydog919 mentioned this in a separate thread and I thought I would repost it here:

“Before the upgrade at the bottom of the page there were several buttons where you could filter threads. View most viewed, most replied, view threads from 1 month, 6 months, etc… I think this feature should be brought back.”

I would love to be able to sort as well. I used it often.

Bookmarking sub-forums and hitting “reply” to a particular post (rather than having to scroll down to the bottom of the page where the reply box is) are what I miss most. Bookmarking sub-forums especially.

This is a College info site - I thought. Bookmarking a particular college allowed me to see questions and threads I wouldn’t normally think of which was VERY useful. I could bookmark several colleges we are thinking of and see the most recent posts etc. Well now I have to do a search for each college individually EVERY TIME to see if there is anything posted about them but the search doesn’t even put out results in chronological order - I have no clue which ones I’ve already looked at in my previous search and I have no idea if any of the hits I am interested in even have any new posts. @moody208 your update indicated that you are looking into this but not that you will find a way to implement it. Without this feature a HUGE chunk of the purpose of CC is lost to me. Then I guess it is a site of quick question & answer unless you are part of ONE particular thread and keep at it. I really hope this gets fixed - I agree iwth you @OHMomof2

^ Not just “a HUGE chunk of the purpose of CC”, but the entire purpose as far as I’m concerned.

For the most part I think I like the ‘new and improved’ CC site. I do with that the posts were still numbered, There are many times when someone will refer you to an earlier post and it is much easier if they can reference the post number.<br>
It would be great if on the notifications, they could be grouped (like TIVO does for recorded shows lol) So instead of having to scroll through a looooong list of notifications from a busy forum to see if any other forums you posted a question to have been commented on, it would just note that there are 57 notifications for this forum and 12 for that forum…instead of listing each post individually.

@midhelper - me too. I bookmarked several colleges and checked in on them daily. Now it’s just too difficult to do.

I think I may be missing something with the new format then Shoboemom because I can’t see how this new format is helpful. How does anyone see any new questions without subscribing to the particular subforum? If I was to start a new thread with a question, where would it show up and how would anyone see it without actually doing a search on it? Anyone? I am really curious to know the number of unanswered new threads out there today compared to before the change.