UVa survey & influence of college confidential

shelf-life · 10-13-2006, 01:10 PM

This past summer UVa sent a survey to admitted students who decided not to accept UVa's offer of admission. UVa has now sent participants the final results and survey reports. I thought that fellow ccer's might like to see just how influential this forum is. Below I've pasted the question and the results:

Q9: Where do you get most of your information about college? Follow up to answer “online: blog.” Which blog?

• Student's Blog
• http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/
• collegeconfidential.com
• college confidential
• college confidential
• College Confidential
• College Confidential

carolyn · 10-13-2006, 03:57 PM

Only problem: College Confidential is NOT a blog. It's a discussion forum.

*Dean J* · 10-13-2006, 04:05 PM

The fact that there actually are students out there who get MOST of their information about college from a message board is a bit odd to me. Are siblings and peers not sharing their experiences anymore?

By the way, many schools do a similar survey through the College Board's Admitted Student Questionnaire service. I don't know how many institutions make survey data public, but it'd be interesting how the answers differ from school to schoo.

katliamom · 10-13-2006, 07:08 PM

Dean J,
Very few siblings and peers are as well informed as posters on CC. I've been around academics my entire adult life, and I learn things here all the time.

cavalier302 · 10-13-2006, 08:20 PM

I agree with katliamom. Messageboards can be an excellent resource for information - but for the right person. Yes, there are people who get the "wrong" impression about admissions from boards like CC, but others (like me) learn a great deal.

Marian · 10-13-2006, 08:30 PM

This is the era of small families, Dean J. And even if a particular applicant has an older sibling, the students' tastes in colleges may differ so much that the older one has little to share with the younger.

My older child's first choice college (which he is now attending), a flagship state university, is my younger child's safety school. Given this, I don't think kid #1 could share much useful information about the application process with kid #2.

What should bother us all, I think, is that nobody here has yet suggested that students might be able to obtain college information from their school guidance counselors.

bookworm · 10-13-2006, 08:46 PM

Many of the high achieving adolescents that I work with set their sites on the Stanford/ Columbia/ HYP sort of schools. I make them and their parents take a look at the stats for these schools. Just because they are among the brightest in their small private HS, they have slim chance of acceptance. They don't explore the range of colleges, or think about distance from home, etc. I find CC enormously informative. I also like the personal threads about adjustment issues, linens, lost storage, etc. (Makes me appreciate that S's college has storage and housing year round)

ariesathena · 10-14-2006, 05:56 PM

Dean J - there are a lot of students who are the first in their families to go to college, and they are really high achievers who seek out the elite schools. There's hoards of kids like me, whose parents went to college (one graduated) but would not consider going to schools that they are knowledgeable about. My parents wouldn't allow it, anyway.

Back in the Dark Ages, there was no CC, but I really wish I had such a resource.

tokenadult · 10-14-2006, 07:32 PM

Siblings aren't a lot of help to first-born children (that is, when it comes to getting college info). Many students look at CC to help their classmates--CC opens a window on a world bigger than the local high school.