Ok folks, I’ve got something I need to get off my chest. Buckle up, it’ll probably be long because I’ve never been known as one to say something in few words.
I’ve been on CC since probably around 2015 or 16 when I dove early and head first into figuring out this college thing for my older D18. It was (and still can be) a place of collective wisdom, knowledge, and support. I learned A LOT, I’m sure everyone reading this did as well on first visit. Overall the tone here was helpful, supportive, and “we’re all in this together.” Sure you had some outliers, people who came off harsher than they probably intended due to the text-based nature of the interactions, and even grumpy folks, but in general a solid, good community. The most wholesome place on the forums though was the Parents of 20XX communities, however. There, parents of kids graduating in those years could find people who were going through the same thing, at the same time, commiserate losses, share successes, and just provide a community of support together. The sister communities Parents of 20XX 3.0-3.4 were smaller but an even more wholesome place for support, community, and connection for parents with students whose academic record wasn’t perfect, and some who were aiming for big merit at schools those kids were aiming for. All around, very supportive environments for those parents, and rarely, if ever a post from anyone who wasn’t a parent of a student(or sometimes a rare student themselves) in that class. If so those posts were usually of the cheerleading sort, and just once or twice. These days, and maybe it’s a bit pandemic related, IDK, but I’ve noticed the forums in general are less hospitable, people ask their questions and arguments develop, people nitpick posters to absolute death about the most insignificant detail of their profiles, it’s a jungle out there, and I confine myself to here, and to a much lesser extent the other 2022 parent thread.
But in past months, I noticed on the main 2022 parent thread, some discussions have taken a turn in a direction that is less than supportive, more similar in style to what you would see elsewhere in the forum, and very often posters that are shifting the tone aren’t even parents of 2022 kids, and they are dominating the conversation. I don’t really post much over there and I was sad to see it happen but the tone of that thread in general is different from this one. But I’m starting to see it here and I have to speak up because I feel like it stifles our supportive environment. I know there are many of us here who have older kids who’ve been around a bit so I’m sure I’m not the only one who noticed this shift.
Obviously, this is an open forum, where anyone can read and post, however, there is an unwritten courtesy that the Parents of Class 20XX threads are for those parents. If we want other forum advice, we know where to ask for it. If we feel a question is too broad or derailing discussion, we can and have, gently guided people on finding the larger forum to post in for extra advice. This is not a place for random forum posters to give out whatever advice they’ve gleaned though their experience in prior years, or elsewhere, or whatever, there’s literally a whole forum with many, many threads for that. This is a specific place for Parents of HS Class 2022 with imperfect GPAs to seek advice and support from each other, all others, please feel free to read as you like, but keep your responses to the absolute bare minimum. Let’s work together to keep this place the best place on CC. 
That’s it, that’s my soapbox. 22ers you know who you are, I love you all, but I couldn’t sit by and watch as some of you got smacked in a place that’s supposed to be safe for you. We all come to this process from different places, but we cheer for each other, and we all have the same goal: getting a good fit for our kids next year. I hope we can continue to be the supportive place we started out as.
She was still insulted that she did not get that scholarship - luckily she had other options and we have a sense of humor.
for the auditions! D22 was a theater kid until COVID shut everything down. One of her best friends is planning on majoring in theater, musical theater I think. My D22 enjoys acting, but not interested in singing, and really just a hobby for her, but she might do some at WWC. Her friend has been accepted to Pace in NY already (think there wasn’t an audition?) and he just submitted a bunch of video auditions this past weekend to other schools. Break a leg to your D22 and all those auditioning!