Talk about the decline of message boards on the internet. Anyway, I need to thank College Confidential a lot for giving me sound advice for applying to colleges all those years ago. I have never taken a class for a standardized test, but it turns out that all I really needed was the College Board materials and a ton of motivation, which I’ve never been short on, to do well. I’m looking to be more active on here and help out college-bound teenagers now that I’m back on a new account. How’s everybody been doing on here?
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I’m glad you got some help from this board. The decline is probably due to the fact that class numbers are declining. Many of us began here when competition was at its peak.
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Reddit, probably. Kids aren’t on forums like these as much, but the r/a2c is hopping.
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Every time they made a big change to the board, they lost a group of old timer parents who’d stuck around to pay it forward, this last change really reduced usage noticeably.
Plus info is much more widespread on the internet than it was 15-20 years ago, even just 3 years between my two kids showed a dramatic increase in info available about the admissions process. Perhaps people can find more info other places now?
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Definitely there is a lot more info available online now. And social media resources.
One example of change for online info is that years I got a lot of insight (and initially disappointment) from the general FAFSA financial estimate calculator…. but over time more college added their own more specific calculator, sometimes with student stats factor regarding merit scholarships too.
I certainly wasn’t here 15 years ago, but as an intermittent lurker who now has an account, I will make this observation: I once thought CC was just a very small sample size of applicants and parents (like well under 1%)…however, Inow think it has to be a much larger chunk, at least in certain subsets. I say this because small schools admit low hundreds of students in ED/EA (even Ivies are in 3 digits for this) yet we have multiple “got in!” admission posts just this year in the Ivy threads and certain liberal arts school threads…plus the success rate in the musical theater threads etc…in other words, for certain subsets of students (for which we know there are only say 300 in total), CC sometimes has 5-10+ students (or parents of students) belonging to that category based on posts. That’s well over 1% and seems like an impressive “market share” given the large number of lurkers who just read and never post. Just my thoughts. Also the Reddit A2C posts are usually too painful for me as an adult to read (lingo and abbreviations I need to translate in my head to proper English, oversharing and no internal filter, etc…)
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Yup, but that’s where the kids are. CC is skewing older like Facebook. CC is turning into mainly parents talking to each other. Anytime 1 student posts it seems like 10 parents pile on to advise.
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A2C = applying to college
I originally posted this as a question, then googled it for the definition.
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I know that. Why are you replying to me? I’m the one who said the kids were on Reddit.
I lurk on A2C and, as a parent, much prefer CC. I’ve only been on CC for a year or so and have learned so much about college admissions and have also been entertained by parents discussing and debating different topics.
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And yet, there are still plenty of students coming here asking for advice. Why? In all likelihood, those ten parents know what they are talking about. A2C is for the kids. It’s a place to rant and get lots of affirmation. I’ve seen posts on A2C that say effectively “I’m on A2C because I want to feel reassured. I go to CC when I want a dose of reality.”
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Of my d22’s cohort I know of none who even know what CC is. And actually a lot of my D22’s friends are dropping social media altogether.
Just confirmed with my 18 yr old and my 20 yr old that they have never heard anyone their age mention CC. It’s like Facebook — mainly for old people now.
And it has been super helpful to this old person to have other parents to commiserate with on our kids’ college processes, but I think forums in general are not as popular now and certainly not with the gen z-ers.
my D23 was asking questions about some colleges/costs/getting in and said she might make a new account on CC to ask. My first reaction was “NO! you’ll be swarmed by adults and it will scare you off!” i do think adults need to take a kind understanding approach to kids here, some who know nothing about college admissions.
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This.
I learned a ton from past posts and the wisdom of parents. A2C has its own charms but I do not get a great deal of good information from that subreddit.
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