<p>^ NewHope is never sarcastic. Never.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend this website for choosing colleges to apply to or go to once admitted. A lot of the information here is simply the opinion of a few (biased) posters or simply hearsay (I once read about UCLA lectures with 1,000+ students; the biggest lecture hall seats less than half that). Using each school’s forum to get a feel for the university may seem tempting, but the people on there are not a representative sample, nor are they necessarily going to be happy to answer your question if they’ve seen it hundreds of times before.</p>
<p>What this is website is useful for is general information like the application timeline or usual procedures. The test prep forum can also be of good use.</p>
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<p>This is pretty much true of the Internet in general. People on it tend to be rude, petty, argumentative and sophomoric. If someone is impressionable enough to be affected by the numbers they see or the idiots they talk to, they should probably avoid the Internet altogether. Also, the numbers you posted are a it of an exaggeration - people like that are fairly rare even on this site.</p>
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<p>Maybe you’re right about the homework schedule :D, but I don’t know that it affects the psyche. Anyway, the type of kid that would get drawn in and make thousands of posts here would probably find some other place online (if they haven’t already) to do that if they didn’t have CC.</p>
<p>Although I speak from the student side versus the parent side, I would definitely promote the site to other students. You just have to be able to weed out all the craziness (which has been said multiple times on this thread) and put everything in perspective.
I’m not a student who can say I’ve posted a What are my chances thread with an SAT score of 2350 and 12 AP Classes but stuff like EC’s motivates me to do better- and what’s wrong with that?
Motivation is important to do well in school, in my opinion, and I think this forum is definitely good for that.</p>
<p>Also: I agree that this helps for general information about college which is always a plus.</p>
<p>I found this site and showed it to my daughter, also a rising senior, who now has her own CC account. While I tend to surf various forums, she pretty much sticks with her major specific forum. She understands that there are postings she needs to take with a grain of salt, but she has gotten some very valuable information from students, parents and college reps in that forum. We do discuss “interesting” comments but that’s a part of the fun for us. </p>
<p>Glad to know the cats on the menu at Wagstaff U. is not true. She can add Wagstaff back to her list.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading and eventually posting on CC for several years and find it interesting even now that I am an alum parent rather than an applicant parent. I think whether a rising senior will find the forums useful or just distracting depends on what other resources are available to him. There are a number of well-informed and insightful posters, some of whom have not appeared lately and some who still contribute. CC can be recreational and add nice extra perspectives for someone who already has a good guidance counselor, informed parents with whom he communicates well, and/or is aware that you can get many answers to basic questions (is there a foreign language requirement? can I use my AP credits?) from the college Web site. </p>
<p>The most valuable lesson a thoughtful rising senior might get from CC is the “Andison lesson”–to apply wisely to a good range of schools. The related lesson I think is the “love thy safety” mantra.</p>
<p>But there are also some pretty depressing and/or misleading posts, less useful specific forums, and endless instances of foolish postings, so if introducing a student to CC I’d point out a few of them as pitfalls to avoid and places to skip reading.</p>
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<li><p>People, especially students but sometimes also parents, say too much. It isn’t a good idea to be readily identifiable in what is essentially full view of the whole world and at the very least can be embarrassing when you finally get to a school or in other situations. Be general and don’t pretend you are asking for a friend (and if you are, don’t give away his/her identifying details either.)</p></li>
<li><p>People ask silly questions. As far as specific qustions go, I think a careful perusal of the admissions and academics sections of school Web sites, with additional visits to the sections devoted to specific aspects of student life (athletics, clubs, dorms, good, and so on) will give many of the queriers the answers they seek on CC and anytthing they find here is icing on the cake. More subjective stuff like where to stay during visits or which is the best dorm can be answered in a setting like this but the answers should be considered as part of the overall picture, not as absolutes. And the overall feel of a campus is hard to define–I would agree that CC can give some hints, but that is all they are–just as the thumbnail sketches in Fiske and Insider’s Guide and so on are also just partial (sometimes skewed) views.</p></li>
<li><p>As others have said, avoid the chances forum and don’t offer slingshot opinions there either. On the chance forum and in posts on other forums about specific chances you find a depressing and sometimes infuriating mix of desperation, arrogance, and ignorance. The self-described stellar achievements scare you, the focus on big names scares you, the glib “you re in” should scare you. There is too much pressure and anxiety and misinformation there.</p></li>
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<p>I have caught more than one poster here in a “mistruth” (conflict of information between one post and a previous one), so I guess I wouldn’t recommend it to a kid who might take it too seriously or consider it some sort of online bible on high school success or college admissions.</p>
<p>Having said that, as an adult with a better sense of the various personalities, and given that I’ve found my “people”…I enjoy the exchange of information and the relationships built here.</p>
<p>DD knows about CC (through me, and via conversations with her rising senior friends whose parents also frequent CC) and refers to it (in a loving manner) as nutter.com. As in: “what are you looking at mom? Oh, you’re on nutter dot com!” She thinks it’s funny that I’m on here but appreciates that I can toss her a few nuggets of wisdom from time to time. She will look at a particular thread if I think she should, but she has no interest in posting here.</p>
<p>D found some of the information I gleaned to be useful but was happy enough to have me do the gleaning…she didn’t want to spend time on CC. Occasionally, I would run a question by her and post an answer for someone else’s benefit if I thought her insight to the question would be particularly useful & valid. Otherwise, I think her attitude towards being on the same internet forum as a parent was pretty simple: ICK!</p>
<p>Speaking as a CC kid, what I find interesting is that CC kids almost never have CC parents (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/729199-do-your-parents-use-cc.html?highlight=parents[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/high-school-life/729199-do-your-parents-use-cc.html?highlight=parents</a>), and CC parents almost never have CC kids.</p>
<p>i actually think once the students has been accepted at a college, signing onto the college’s board can be extremely helpful. (YMMV, depending on how active the board for that school is.)</p>
<p>i’ve answered questions from accepted students about very specific NYU things that they wouldn’t have known otherwise. upperclassmen have answered lots of different questions; from the lowdown on the best freshman dorm, to the realities of how to make a class schedule (“no, you can’t get from building X to building Y in 15 minutes because they’re on different avenues”), and even being frank and honest about what they will experience during the adjustment to NYC. </p>
<p>i think the small things like that can assuage the anxieties about coming to a particular school.</p>
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I think this is the key–there are certainly students on here who really need some of the advice they are getting, and others who are just in an echo chamber. I have recommended the site to several parents who weren’t getting very good advice from the high school.</p>
<p>I did, sort of, recommend this site to my younger two. It was back when I first found it.
They thought it was “creepy” (and some other well known teen expletives) and also reminded me that I taught them never to talk to strangers on the internet. LOL.
While I have made some friends on her (in real life) - my kids prefer to still meet their friends face to face, thank goodness!</p>
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<p>LOL cause when we recently met with an admissions rep after a tour, we were asked how we found out about the school. My daughter said, “My mom talks to strangers on this college web site, even though she always tells me not to do it, and they told her about this school.” Yes, I was embarassed!</p>
<p>I think this site is a great tool, however, it should be used in conjunction with many other resources. Don’t come here for hard facts, but this site is great for advice. I’ve been interested in women’s colleges, and was nervous about it. The response i got from the CC community was very encouraging and informative, and it added greatly to my college search.
I recommend it, but not as a stand alone</p>
<p>I just got into this–I’ve been on a few forums in my day, but not so anymore. My parents dogged me into this.</p>
<p>Honestly, I love it. It’s an easy way to learn about colleges or get quick answers or relevant links when I’m too lazy to seek them out with Google or Wikipedia.</p>
<p>Having been on other forums, I know stuff people say should be taken with a (sometimes huge) grain of salt, but overall I think this is a great tool.</p>