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<p>I laughed out loud and had the virtual image of clicking heels and a door slamming behind an indignant, “Well! I never… !!”</p>
<p>^ Me too! “Go chance yourself” would make a great CC t-shirt!</p>
<p>Also agree that the “chance me” threads always seemed ridiculous to me, especially “chance me and I’ll chance you back,” and especially on that forum which is frequented by other kids who:
(a) have no experience as a basis for their judgments
(b) display limited social graces (read: they’re nasty)
(c) are the competition</p>
<p>I’ve tried to be vague about the combination of stats, interests, background, and extracurricular activities that would definitively identify my son to a stranger. People who know him might recognize him from my posts over time, but they would already know most of what I’ve posted anyway.</p>
<p>Also, I think it’s neither kind nor fair to the kid when parents air their dirty laundry or post highly embarrassing information about the kid – perception of anonymity notwithstanding. That can come back to bite you in the butt long after the initial problem is resolved. JMHO.</p>
<p>I periodically answer all the chance me posts on the Harvard forum with “like just about everyone applying you have less than a one in ten chance of being accepted, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply, you have a zero percent chance if you don’t apply.” You’d think kids who were applying to Harvard would be able to figure out their own chances. It’s a weird psychology going on there.</p>
<p>“Chance Me” threads are like a bowl of M&Ms on the countertop. You know you should walk by, but somehow you always find yourself nibbling at a few.</p>
<p>As for parents v. students posting; I always assumed that CC was a way to exchange information. It never crossed my mind that any particular group had a preferential position in a particular forum. Even in the cases of the designated forums, e.g. this Parent Forum, I’ve noticed that there is a lot of good (and bad) information flying around that would be appropriate for the full site population. Also it’s not unusual to find useful threads posted the “wrong” forum, as a result I have no remorse about visiting and commenting in any part of the site.</p>
<p>Specifically regarding the “Chance Me” threads, Parents may post to get a better understanding of their child’s position. They may post to get advice or a reality check about their child’s or their own sometimes unrealistic expectations. The problems come when we forget that respondents on CC are not admissions professionals; at best we are parents/students who have recently gone through the process. But even that doesn’t help, an individual parent’s or student’s experience is one data point and we the readers have no way of knowing if we’ve heard all the relevant data; we also have no way of knowing a responders biases. In other words, we all forget the golden rule of Internet Forums: Free advice is worth twice what you pay for it.</p>
<p>So in the end, I swing by the chance me thread from time to time and pop a few M&Ms. I share advice with those I assess to be serious questioners while I look down on the 5.0/2400 ■■■■■■ begging for affirmation.</p>
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<p>Hallelujah, Amen!</p>
<p>My responses to OP:</p>
<p>1) I agree parents should not be controlling.</p>
<p>2) Obsessiveness (in excess) is undesirable in parents- but also in their kids. There are plenty of obsessive parents and plenty of obsessive kids on C.C. Forums like these are magnets for the obsessive. The non-obsessive parents and kids are out there enjoying their lives- so you and I are both guilty of being a bit obsessive.</p>
<p>Responses to other posts on this thread:</p>
<p>1) I can’t join in with the uniform ridicule of ‘chances’ threads. I think they are of extremely limited value but they do serve a purpose. It is very hard to be objective about yourself. Total strangers are going to read your application and so it does make some sense to consult total strangers about how you look on paper. Granted, there are huge differences- the strangers who will evaluate you are expert admissions officers- not other teenagers; and they are going to see the actual letters of recommendation and essays. But even so, it is not always unhelpful to get someone else’s opinion about yourself. The “chance me and I’ll chance you back” posts also make some sense to me because it is easier for you to be objective about someone else. Consider it the equivalent of two girls trying on different clothes in a dressing room and asking each other “how do I look”? Of course, they can look in the mirror, but they still want to ask each other. Neither girl knows how the rest of the world (or specifically, the cute boys they are trying to attract) will react, but at this point, the random next person will have to do.</p>
<p>I also think that threads very similar to ‘chances’ threads posted by parents in the parent’s forum can be quite helpful in providing a quick reality check. I see plenty of examples here where wise C.C posters with lots of experience will give specific advice about colleges that would fit a certain profile and the need to add safer choices, financial safeties, etc. And for people to give meaningful feedback, some stats are needed, so these threads do start looking like chances threads.</p>
<p>2) I totally agree with geek_mom that the big concern about chances threads is that people (parents or kids) put so much information out there that their privacy is compromised. However, in today’s world of facebook, it appears that the younger generation is not as worried about privacy as we old timers might think. Young people are putting a lot of their lives out there for the world to see.</p>
<p>3) Students who read the parents forum should realize that for a lot of the parents this is a place where they can safely vent about their own frustrations and anxieties, thereby sparing their children in the process. We get to act out our ‘obsessive’ side here so that in real life we can be sweet supporting and ‘chill’ parents.</p>
<p>re Chance me posts—I think it’s sad that so many students and parents seem to buy into the quantifying, self-objectifying aspects of college admission. It’s understandable but still pathetic. It’s also the wrong focus and misleads students (and parents) into thinking that if only they got another 100 points on the SAT or had the right, magical combination of AP classes and EC’s, their life would be perfect. Seeing students break themselves down to a list of stats makes me wonder about their education. Maybe all that standardized testing has turned a generation into robots.</p>
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<p>This is exactly me. I can offer advice in a calm way and have some back up info available when it might seem I wouldn’t know what I am taking about. It sometimes amazes me that my kids really think I was born being 40!</p>
<p>Second: I have never seen anyone say that the numbers are the only things that matter. But it is true that if you don’t have the grades or scores at a certain level, it won’t matter what kind of essays you write or the caliber of your recs. I think that was what was driven home most for me during this process. It became pretty clear that the grades and scores were “in there.” But that in the end, the chance me threads don’t really speak to the intangibles that either make or possibly break an application. If anything, CC made me both more neurotic AND more assured. Neurotic because it really does seem like a crap shoot at times and more assured because I knew that whatever happened, it would all work out for the best. And it did!</p>
<p>and now… far beyond the college thing, it’s become a good place to just talk parenting and expectations as we move into a new phase of parenting (and still having one more to go through it all as well).</p>