College Confidential
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[edit] College Confidential
College Confidential (CC) is a popular college admissions website and forum founded to clarify many aspects of the college admissions process, and to help even "first timer" students and parents understand the process like "old professionals." College Confidential assembled an editorial team to bring visitors the best and most unique college admissions content on the Web. The website contains a myriad of articles dealing with the college selection process, the application process and even college life. From the website:
College Confidential was founded to demystify many aspects of the college admissions process, and to help even "first timer" students and parents understand the process like "old pros." At College Confidential, we have assembled an editorial team to bring our visitors the best and most unique college admissions content on the Web. These contributors include an experienced independent college admissions counselor, Dave Berry: a senior admissions officer who has served in multiple selective colleges, David Hawsey: and, for an "outsider" perspective, a parent who has participated in his own children's admissions process and is active in high school academics, Roger Dooley. Together, Dave & David authored America's Elite Colleges: The Smart Buyer's Guide to the Ivy League and Other Top Schools, published by Random House-Princeton Review in August 2001. In 2002, Sally Rubenstone, author of The Panicked Parents Guide to College Admissions, joined College Confidential as Senior College Counselor and Contributing Editor.
The website is paid for in part by advertisements, many of which are geared towards the students and parents on the site. Typical advertisements promise to help increase test scores, write the dreaded college essay, and develop college application lists. In many ways the website is the result of a growing national anxiety over increasingly selective colleges, the usefulness of standardized test scores, Advanced Placement classes, etc. This phenomenon was partially documented in Jacques Steinberg's novel The Gatekeepers (which many who frequent the website will have already read or reread), which followed the inner workings of the Wesleyan University admissions officers for a full year. With the increasing population of teenagers in the United States, the next few years will result in only higher competition for the few spots at the most coveted and prestigious universities and colleges.
[edit] College Confidential Forums
The College Confidential Forum represents the most heavily used part of the site, drawing on the knowledge of over 50,000 registered users. It features a very active 'What Are My Chances?' subforum, where users are evaluated on their chances of acceptance to specific colleges based on their test scores, GPA, and extracurricular activities.There are also various other subforums regarding financial aid, SAT, ACT and AP test preparation, forums for each of the universities in the Ivy League, as well as for the nation's top research universities and liberal arts colleges. Critics charge that the forums are populated by arrogant yet naive teenagers who expect admission to a top college to subdue feelings of inadequacy and social rejection. However, most users only display a moderate amount of pretentiousness, and their need for peer acceptance typically precludes hostile attempts to establish intellectual superiority.
The forum also contains several subforums for casual conversations. There is a Parents Cafe, subforums dedicated to high school and college life, and a College Confidential Cafe. Posts made in the cafes do not count towards users total post count.
[edit] Forum Population, History and Culture
As with all forums, College Confidential deals with its share of trolls. Internet trolls are users who post to incite anger in other users, who, in response, "flame" the troll with vitriolic remarks. Many of these trolls frequent the What Are My Chances forums, posting ridiculous stats and asking CCers their chances at top colleges. One of the most infamous trolls was "iwannagoivy," who started a cult, including a Myspace group and a popular fan following on CC. The moderators later closed the thread.
The majority of the users in the forums are either teenagers in high school or parents. There also is a small number of middle school students who discuss their admissions into private boarding schools in the high school forum. Due to the often absurdly high test scores and near perfect GPAs boasted by many on the forums, those on "CC", as the website is nicknamed, carry the stigma of being nerds, geeks, losers, or general hardasses. A significant portion of the forum community apply to the Ivy Leagues and the other most selective colleges in the United States.
[edit] College Confidential Language
- See also: Internet slang
There are certain acronyms that users of CC are familiar with and often cause confusion to new users. Here is a list of popular acronyms:
- CC = College Confidential/Community College
- D = Daughter
- DD = Dearest Daughter
- S = Son
- DS = Dearest Son
- adcom = Admissions Committe Member/Admissions Committee
- AA = Affirmative Action
- URM = Under Represented Minority (African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, etc)
- EC = Extracurricular Activities
- HYPSM = Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT (the colleges that many CCers aspire to *attend)
- LAC = Liberal Arts College
- EA = Early Action
- ED = Early Decision
- RD = Regular Decision
- BS = Boarding School
- WL = Waitlist, waitlisted
[edit] The Moderators
Like any other forum on the internet, College Confidential has numerous moderators who look over the posts. Posts with violent, offensive, or inappropriate language are immediately discarded when spotted by a moderator. There also exists a community forum where users can post complaints, requests, advice and questions relating to the operation of the site. The moderators, also called "mods", have the power to temporarily or permanantly ban users from posting. This is done mostly by the reports of other users. For every post including private messages, a user can choose to "Report Offensive Post". Almost all who had been caught through the process of reporting receive temporary bans. They still can use the private messaging service, often referred to as "PMs", and read the posts on the forum. However, they can no longer post comments or start threads. The exact active hours of the moderators remain as a mystery unsolved.
