Wasn’t my assertion (I’m not privied to the site’s servers’ W3C logs) - just trying to share what I had observed as possibly contributing factors.
And, to be clear, I am NOT complaining about banner ads as means to support web sites (they have to pay their substantial bills as well). But there is a fine balance between acceptable banner ad technology that will drive revenue while RETAINING visitors, and obstructive banner ad technology/placement that will interfere with user experience.
In an attempt to drive up revenue, sites can “drive down” visitors - which will then reduce billable ad rates (the opposite of what had been justifiably intended.)
There is an X all the way to the right, but that’s not always obvious. It also shouldn’t be necessary. We shouldn’t have ads covering the box where people post. I’m checking with our developers to see if we can fix this.
Indeed, it is. But between the “X” on the far right, and Google’s “x” on the ad itself, your non-technical user will not always know how to act. They just know that their “submit” button on the left doesn’t react to clicking.
A better implementation would be for the vertical client area to be (even further) reduced so that the form appears ABOVE the banner ad – alternatively, the banner ad insertion code needs to be context aware to avoid banner ads being placed if a form is open.
I wrote up a year-in-review that addresses at least part of the question. To sum up:
Summer is particularly slow on CC.
Participation has been falling for years as students have found other ways to learn about the college admissions process.
The first will pass as the next generation of students start thinking about college applications. The second is a serious concern that keeps me awake at nights. (Not every night, but some nights. ) College Confidential started in the distant past when there wasn’t much information online. Today it’s overwhelming how much you can find. In a sense that’s a positive development. But it has meant that CC is no longer an essential part of the college application process.
CC has modernized the interface over the years. (If you want to see some previous iterations, the Wayback Machine is a great resource.) But at it’s core, CC is still an old-fashioned forum. Personally I think that’s wonderful, but it does mean we are burdened with the baggage of the medium. A lot of people, especially our target demographic, have learned to be skeptical of forums. We can work together to show that CC is different from that negative stereotype, but it’s a process that must be repeated year after year as a new class considers joining and participating.
To be transparent, my professional goal for the coming year is to encourage more people (especially students) to register and join in the conversation. But I don’t want to fall into a trap we stumbled on a couple years ago where driving registration gave visitors the impression we were a paid site and hurt other important metrics.
I can’t do this alone! The best thing this community can do is continue to give amazing advice to students who do come and post on CC. The best tool we have is showing people outside of CC the great things that are happening here. For instance, if you look at our Instagram account, it frequently features forum posts. (Say that 3 times fast!) The plan is people will be drawn into the forums if they are interested in a topic we post about and once they are here discover even more interesting people and content.
So I do want to acknowledge that you have observed a problem, let you know we are aware of it and encourage everyone to think of how you can help. I’m optimistic about the future of CC because of the people who make up the community. We might need to change some of the ways we operate, but as long as we have a solid core of people who care about students and their education, I’m confident CC will find a way to help.
I found CC to a tremendous reference when my kids were applying to college. One of the areas I visited most often was the college majors forums. My oldest D wanted to be an Engineering major (2012 - 2013). At the time it was a very active forum with some Professors and it seemed many who were familiar with the engineering profession posting daily. There was just a lot of dialogue. My D is now a Chemical Engineer so I’ve kept up with the forum. There are just a lot fewer questions and less interaction.
I think you may be right that there are probably other options for people to get opinions and have questions answered. I wasn’t aware of them because both my kids have graduated and I haven’t had the need to seek out any other places. I’ve become fairly addicted to CC and in my way hope to occasionally offer good advice. I do think that having schools divided by state is better than just a list of schools. It’s easier to find the schools you are seeking and schools that are in a certain proximity. I also think having things listing vertically would be easier to navigate and find things than having them all clumped together. Just an opinion. CC has been a great site. I for one will do my best to suggest it to a parent of an up and coming college student.
I’m gonna chime in as a once lover of CC. I have been on CC for 21 years, longer than a lot of people now participating on it. For many of those years, up until the last handful, I was a VERY active participant with a very high post count, etc. I’ve participated as a parent, and then for the past 20 years, also as a professional college consultant. Back when CC was owned by Dave, Sally, and Roger, I also was a part of their college counseling team for a portion of that time. Truth be told, I’ll out myself now that I was also a moderator for years on CC.
My participation on CC has gone WAY down in the last few years when CC has changed hands a few times, but mostly due to format changes, which wrecked it for me. Many of us old timers left. We were a valuable part of the forums because we had experience and wisdom to share so that it wasn’t the blind leading the blind. There is still a core of very knowledgeable people who have stayed or since joined who can advise others.
Here is one example of what was decimated on CC when the formatting and administrative changes took place…the Musical Theater Majors forum…a forum I helped set up on CC (it originally was a very long multi-part general thread). The MT Forum because THE BEST source on the internet for this specialized and competitive college admissions process. Many knowledgeable people helped newbies. It was extremely active with tons of posts and threads daily. I also was instrumental in setting up individual college sub forums in the MT Forum, where threads on particular colleges’ programs could be found and were very active. The format changes did away with all those subforums. Lots of other changes even made the forum hard to find for a while (that got a bit better recently). So, in the last handful of years, that forum which was one of the most active ones on CC, practically died. In fact, rather than lots of new threads daily (and on top of no longer having separate forums for each college), it reverted back to what it was 20 years ago before there was a MT Forum…to one LONG catchall thread for that admissions year…one of the only threads there is any activity on within that forum…no specific topic threads hardly at all. The participation has gone so far down to be practically non-existent. It went from the best resource on the web, to no value at all. It went from one of the most active forums on CC to barely at all. Subsequently, everyone (and then new families each year) gravitated toward private Facebook groups set up for the MT college process (one for parents, one for students). I am very active in these groups and these forums in these groups are super active daily. Nobody in those groups ever consults CC and many don’t even know of it. As a private college counselor, I no longer suggest CC to my clients even.
I will also add that after many years of helping and answering the same questions over and over again, it got repetitive. One thing in the private FB groups I am in that relate to college admissions is that there are FILES for commonly asked topics and questions, so people are not repeating the same advice and information on some common questions.
I personally have found College Confidential invaluable. It’s not perfect, but it’s a lot more perfect than many of the other sites out there. I can either consult existing threads or create a new one, and usually have the answer I need in a matter of minutes, without a bunch of “LOLs”, “LMAO” etc.
There’s a real value to that, and the moderators of the main site (i.e., the SuperMods) do an incredible job in keeping things focused and on point. I really don’t feel the need to explore elsewhere when it comes to matters of education.
I don’t have the answer to your question. I just know that it was way better, more active, and more engaging for the first 15 years I was actively involved in it.
I agree with this. My kids are now 34 and 36 and so I am way past the college admissions process as a parent and so don’t have a lot of questions. I stayed on well past my personal experience with my kids, in order to help others, and enjoy doing so. I was answering the same questions over and over since I had been on here for so long! I still read stuff here because it relates to my profession as an independent college consultant. I still sometimes read the Parent Cafe because while not about college, I have always found it to often be intelligent discourse with people in my generation, compared to some online discussions elsewhere. And some old timers are still there!
i think that focusing on parents is your best bet. they pay attention to things more than kids do. kids come on CC, ask a question, and leave. They are way more influenced by peers and peer sites. Parents stay here for years! and because parents pay for college, they are completely invested in the process.
i think one of CC’s best feature is the lack of political discussions. I’d have that as my emphasis. wise people across the nation, no politics.
the FB paying for college group is NUTS. are you on that? it’s a different focus on there, but sometimes CC is mentioned as a good resource to really dig into college ideas for kids. I’d have a fellow employee monitoring it, and share links to CC discussion, or mention the benefits of the C website and forums. (and maybe you already do!)
I used to notice that too. People would be asking the same questions over and over. It made sense since there were new people coming in all the time. I began to notice patterns which also makes sense. I remember around March the panic would set in as some bright students would realize that they weren’t getting accepted to their “dream” schools and in some cases never considered a real safety. Or parents realizing that their excellent HS student wasn’t getting a full ride and they need to figure out how to finance the education after assuming it would be affordable. There would be an optimism and even a bit of hubris in September and October while they were looking for ideas and seeking affirmation (both students and parents). The thing is for others this was part of the learning process. CC was a place not only to get information but to face reality. It’s one thing to have people talking about the importance of a safety, it’s another to watch what can happen when you don’t have one.
One of the reasons questions get asked again and again is the search function on this site is horrible. Really horrible.
I’ve also been around a long time. I’ve seen some very helpful and knowledgable posters drop off the site, and really none have replaced them. I find it sad that these very helpful folks have moved on, but understand. But really…if the smart and helpful ones move on then it’s not a surprise that the threads they know about become less frequented.
Agree with others that the search feature is almost useless.
@thumper1 there are lot of knowledgeable newer users who have come along in the last few years and have great advice. Some are on this thread. It’s definitely sad that some have dropped off the radar though.
@soozievt made a very important point. There are old timers on CC who have grandchildren (a whole thread is dedicated to that. I personally can’t wait to post in the wedding thread, myself .) Some people’s kids are many years out of college. It’s natural that some people will leave the site, and the site “upgrade” debacle several years ago did not help at all.
Kids want to hang out with other kids so it’s not surprising that they go to A2C and discord. But my sense is that when they want really serious advice, they do still come here.
Not disagreeing, but in the time I’ve been here (2014), the search function has always been pretty useless.
More to the point, kids want to hang out where their parents aren’t. When I was in HS, Facebook was a thing. It stopped being a thing when skimom joined. I love you mom, but no, I’m not accepting your friend request.
)
Thanks for trying to fix !
.) Some people’s kids are many years out of college. It’s natural that some people will leave the site, and the site “upgrade” debacle several years ago did not help at all.
I love you mom, but no, I’m not accepting your friend request.