Some of the students asking for essay help are likely not able to pay extra for it. I’d want to be able to continue that as a free service.
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Why would they want to work for free (for a for profit company) when they can’t help the students who need it most? Charging a cost for this would further exacerbate the income inequality in this admissions process.
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Charging for essay help initially would be from a professional instead of community help. That said, if we could figure out some kind of revenue share with community reviewers, that might be possible. That seems like a 2.0 iteration of any paid service…
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The students who I have encountered tend not to have resources, whether financial or parental help or quality school help. I sincerely hope there is never a charge for essay help on CC. Again, if you have tiers of essay help, meaning paid/professional vs volunteer, the site changes a lot in terms of equal access to resources.
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I really like the volunteer aspect of essay help - not something we want to lose. Besides, it’s so small right now that trying to monetize it would prob just bring negative consequences.
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Change the website name to Ivy League Confidential .
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That sounds like something people will pay for 
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The vast majority of feedback on this thread is coming from those of us who are done with college admissions and are here to help current and future applicants. You’ve already said that we will not pay.
You received a handful of comments from students and parents who are in the thick of it right now. I would look for more feedback from that population. What do they feel would be worth paying for, and how much would they be willing to pay?
“Chance Me” is one of my pet peeves. I know it came from reddit or discord or somewhere else, but none of us (except for maybe Gumbymom) can really give a quantifiable answer to the question.
For students who have already applied, it is moot. I think a lot of those posts are done out of boredom as they wait out the process. Many times, the OP never comes back (example). For others, feedback on their existing list and/or for suggestions on schools to consider can be very helpful. If accurately described and marketed, it might be worth paying for. I don’t think calling it “chance me/match me” is the best way to categorize those threads. It might be a trendy term, but it doesn’t reflect the depth of advice that is provided.
- application strategies
- advice on additional schools to consider
- identifying safety, likely, match and reaches
- suggestions (based on info provided) of topics to write about
- feedback on essays
- preparing for an interview
- evaluating financial offers
- and more
When families with freshmen or sophomores come to ask for advice, they are often met with responses telling them that it is too early, to do what they enjoy, come back in a couple of years, etc. I think those kinds of comments drive away people who are trying to engage with the website.
Maybe families would be willing to pay for a soup to nuts high school journey type of service. Something that is personalized and tailored for what year the student is in school. Freshman advice, sophomore advice, junior advice, etc. Examples include:
- Help deciding which HS classes to take (math, science and LOTE are commonly asked)
- Advice on potential majors and career aspirations
- How to develop a budget for college and how to discuss it with your child.
- How to use a NPC
- How to spend your summers (school vs extracurricular vs job)
- Touring colleges - when, where, what to look for, notes for Why Us essays, etc.
- Brainstorming and drafting essay topics
- Help organizing options (Parents of 2024 just had a robust convo about that)
- Tracking deadlines
I like the idea of offering a private place where applicants can share more personal information and I think people would probably pay a nominal fee for that. I would want to make sure that those pages/listings cannot be copied or referenced anywhere else.
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Perhaps charge a premium for providing the “Chance Me” responses the poster wants to hear. 
(I think the Chances forums are the most useless part of CC. I never, ever read them. I think there should just be a sticky that says, “You will know your chances when you receive your decision.”)
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This is true - it’s like my sales forecast. I tell my boss - the forecast is where we are at midnight on the 31st. What else matters?
That said, I think the chance mes are very good…very informative for those open to hearing.
It helps some who might have mis guided or judged and it helps many who don’t know how to properly build a list do so.
Until I got on the politics forum, I didn’t know there were other things on the CC. I’m sure there are many “groups” i’m unaware of.
So it really depends on what one’s interests are.
The problem with - even if you could charge for a chance me and have them be data based - I think C Vine does this, etc. so how does the site differentiate itself vs. others so that people would be willing to spend?
College admissions are actually much more predictable, in the aggregate, than a lot of people realize.
I think the most valuable part of CC is redirecting the unhooked “average excellent” students away from a reach heavy list, and telling the occasional exceptional student that they have a decent shot at their reaches but to pay careful attention to their match and safety schools.
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Any chance the AMAs done by professionals in fields could be put together someplace and pinned? (Like mine🙂)
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@movingtothebeach wow, you’re amazing! And everyone here is blowing me away with their collective wisdom. I can’t believe the range of ideas and expertise so many of you have. And you correctly use punctuation and grammar! This is probably my favorite post on CC for a while😍
There IS a place for AMA’s. There are a lot of them. I’m not sure why it isn’t active anymore, but maybe @CC_Mike or @CC_Sorin can investigate. Topics tagged official-ama
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This is an example of a thread that could be very helpful to sophomores and juniors who are just starting to develop college lists. Adding it here in case you set up sections tailored for different years of HS.
Best way to identify good undergrad science research programs.
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i think something like the “stats of people who got into xyz schools early” threads could be a fun premium feature if more centralized/thorough? something like scoir scattergrams but with more data points
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@halyardic but stats alone don’t get students into top colleges.
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Also hard to equate GPAs out of different high schools.
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yeah i guess i meant including descriptions of ECs, etc. like a chance-me style thorough thing but with results.
Even with that, there is no way to know college priorities when crafting an incoming class.
I definitely would not pay a dime for something like this…which also varies depending on the applicants from year to year.
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I agree and this gets at the reasons those admission probability calculators out there are garbage…because they have no way to delineate GPA/assess differences in rigor nor any visibility to students’ ECs/LoRs/Essays.
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