<p>@concernedmom
Don’t be embarassed. Like you, I’m new here too. One thing that really helped me is to use the search functionality of CC, but I have better result using Google with College Confidential at the beginning of my search words.</p>
<p>Concernedmom and 2018dad, you learn over time to filter the mocking stuff and the people for whom there is One True Way for any college-related stuff. I came here originally to ask about my older D’s issue, got a couple of useful answers and some PM’s that were, well, a bit mean. It’s all good-I went with the useful ones.</p>
<p>You CAN find excellent info by searching and with the pinned posts in the various forums. Keep in mind that many of the old regulars may have forgotten how many questions THEY had when they first wandered in here.</p>
<p>“The FA package I got with my acceptance at school B is much better than school A, where I was accepted ED back in December. How can I get out of my ED committment?”</p>
<p>Just wanted to say - this thread is fantastic !</p>
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<p>This is a fair point. It could be both entertaining and useful if those nominating a perennial question also would provide a link to an example of how the issue was addressed in a prior admissions cycle. Consider it the cost of entry for this thread. </p>
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That’s the one I was thinking of.</p>
<p>No need for a “cost of entry” for this thread. Many of the posters in this thread tirelessly help many parents and students who post here. They’ve already paid with their time and expertise. It’s amazing the number of parents and kids who never bother to really look into things until acceptances come in (or not, as the case may be). </p>
<p>@Concernedmom and @2018dad, you have to pick through a lot of umm “stuff” when you browse cc. Some of the people making smug, abrasive comments had kids go through the process so long ago that their kids were already in college when my 2007 HS grad was a high school junior. @straightshooter, that was a great post! I’d love to see how they’d fare if they had to do it again. I just roll my eyes and move on. Dealing with my youngest D is like learning the ropes all over again and I ask lots of questions just like a first timer. </p>
<p>Definitely do the forum searching, ignore the comments that aren’t helpful, and possibly check out the parents’ group for your child’s class. I don’t know about all of them but the 2015 group is awesome. :)</p>
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<p>While I agree that this forum exists for members to help members, and I gladly do, the posters that ask the perennial questions should realize the their question is not unique. CC has a search function. Google is also very helpful. I am not trying to be snarky, but I do tend to lose patience when posters with <5 posts ask a question that has been asked many times before or asks a question that is never going to get a response that meets their satisfaction (e.g.there’s a 30K gap in what I can afford) without at least leading with “Hi, I’m new. I tried to search, but…”</p>
<p>That all said, this thread should probably be moved to the cafe.</p>
<p><a href=“Swallows to Capistrano ( Financial Aid Myths and Realities ) - Parents Forum - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/492777-swallows-to-capistrano-financial-aid-myths-and-realities-p1.html</a></p>
<p>Curm’s “older” post!</p>
<p>Kat
with 5 kiddos so we have been at this for a while, and I am still filling out the FAFSA…since 2001 and will again NEXT year!!</p>
<p>Concernedmom and 2018dad, there really is a lot of good information here on CC. You do have to filter out a lot of chatter. Sometimes, I think some posters are stuck on the zen of college applications and the art of college prestige. Lots of numbers get thrown around and many miss the point. </p>
<p>I learned a lot on CC (always run the NPC on the college’s website and try not to scream when you see the numbers). I learned about Colleges That Change LIves (CTCL) and the philosophy of “fit” the child and discovered some incredible colleges and schools. Not all fit my child but they all make me want to go back to school. </p>
<p>Mostly, I learned there are many ways to approach a problem or situation. Some posters sound judgmental in tone but often they offer good advice. What’'s really nice about reading the 2014 and 2015 groups (my daughter is 2015), is many will post about their downfalls as well as successes so you do see the entire journey. The posts I most enjoy are the ones who come back after one, two or four or five years and give us updates on the original situations and lessons learned.</p>
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<p>CC has “search.” Its functionality has been more or less garbage since the Great Redesign of 2014.</p>
<p>Concernedmom and 2018 dad- I think most of the veterans really want to be helpful to people going through this the first time. And knowledge of how college admissions works circa 2014 isn’t something that anyone who doesn’t have a kid going through it really expects to know. BUT- the expectation that a bunch of strangers on the Internet can diagnose your particular issue and come up with a personalized solution is extreme. So the vets (and I am guilty, mea culpa) get testy when someone has a complicated set of finances, for example, and rather than do the rational thing (like find a CPA who has experience with situations like theirs), they post on CC and without divulging enough information, expect the “wisdom of the crowd” to solve the problem.</p>
<p>I think this group can be very helpful in directing people to the right resources. But someone going through a messy divorce where there are a lot of assets, most of which will not be set aside for their kids higher education post divorce- really? You want advice from a bunch of strangers???</p>
<p>I think some good points have been made. I discovered this forum after son applied to college, when searching for info on financial aid. I learned he didn’t have any reach matches. I’m always pleased when posters ask the Q, in the fall, “What are other colleges similar to _____?” Which ones may be more of a match than a reach?</p>
<p>In same fashion, if they state that finances are an issue, and they ask for match schools that offer merit, CCers are happy to share their experiences. Long timers don’t expect miracles. </p>
<p>What is painful is when someone posts close to April with huge dilemnas, that could have been simplified had they asked months before. Some people are pushing their kids to apply to tippy top schools, for parents’ bragging rights. I’ve seen kids apply to all the Ivies, without considering if they want urban, rural, etc. Women’s colleges are dismissed, but for some girls they would be the best environment. Come April, no one wants to write “You’ve missed the boat; your list was all wrong”. People try to help as best they can.</p>
<p>With all due respect Blossom, I think the point Concernedmom and 2018 dad were making is that it’s the basic questions that come up repeatedly, not the esoteric questions, that are being mocked. I know I felt that way when I first encountered this site.</p>
<p>I like Slackermom’s advice a lot. There’s some great information to be found here but you will have to ignore the chatter and thicken your skin. Not such a bad deal in the end. </p>
<p>I don’t think this thread is mocking parents or kids, but just chuckling between old-timers at what comes back with spring, every spring, like the sparrows. It’s the parents’ version of the kids’ “chance me” (in reverse: predicting what should be predictable, vs. predicting was is unpredictable.) I see it as sweet “all kids are the same” and “aw shucks”. </p>
<p>I don’t think basic questions are really being mocked. I think that in some cases, issues that should have addressed MONTHS ago (for instance: paying for college, determining affordability, an NCP that won’t pay, etc) and it is almost comical when someone posts something like: My parents are divorced, my dad made it clear that once child support is over at age 18, he’s not paying for anything else, but all of my schools require NCP info. What can I do? If I don’t get to go to one of those top schools then my whole high school life will be a waste.</p>
<p>I don’t know which questions Concernedmom is referencing that she thinks are good questions to be asking spring of senior year when it’s usually too late to “fix”, but maybe she can say which ones those are.</p>
<p>I remember Concernedmom’s questions last fall about finding merit for her D’s high GPA but low ACT. That was a great time to ask. If she were to first ask that question in Spring of her D’s senior year, it would be question that would have more than a day late and a dollar short.</p>
<p>UCLA or USC?</p>
<p>I will make a very big effort NEVER to be snarky, thanks for calling the vets out on that.</p>
<p>But I don’t think people are snarky on the basic questions. I work in corporate recruiting and have helped hire thousands of people over the last 30 years. I have answered questions from parents on CC about how the hiring process works for years- just recently did long series of private PM’s- and don’t get snarky even when telling people for the 50th time, “Don’t speculate that you can’t get an interview with JP Morgan if you go to Georgia Tech. Go to the career portion of the JP Morgan website and download their recruiting calendar and you will see exactly where they recruit and when their visits are.” I am happy to answer almost any question if I can be helpful with getting a kid launched professionally, especially when it calms a parent down because they want the kid to major in accounting so he or she can get a job and the kid hates accounting and gets a rash every time he or she has calculate NPV. Or whatever.</p>
<p>But I still maintain that the irritating questions are from people who expect a bunch of strangers to magically find $200K under the mattress or to help their lovely but quite ordinary kid develop a “hook” senior year of HS, or to give them ideas for getting another 30K in merit aid when they’ve already gotten the college’s top award, etc.</p>
<p>But no more snark. Good suggestion from the newbies.</p>
<p>I just don’t want to see the thread saying that College A With Mean SAT Score of 1530 and mean GPA of 2.9 is “as good as Harvard.” There may be kids for whom it’s better than Harvard. In fact, I am sure there are. But we don’t need to flatten out all educational institutions in order to justify the fact that kids have different skills, talents, personalities, and outcomes.</p>
<p>Sometimes we just poke a little fun at each other. Thin skinned? Maybe a very large forum with a lot of different personalities isn’t the right place to be hanging out. I found the the early posts entertaining. Might I have been guilty of some of those as a newbie? Sure. But I can roll with it/shrug it off/laugh at myself. </p>