The question people should be asking is why students applying to schools with 41%+ acceptance rates don’t frequent CC, and how they could be attracted to the site going forward?
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I don’t believe this is specific to CC. I have observed the same on Reddit.
Students should absolutely be considering and applying to schools with > 40% acceptance rates, and it’s a message that we convey every time whenever a student does not have “likely” and “highly likely” schools on their list.
There are plenty of parents interested in such schools, and we also have 2 wonderful threads created by @AustenNut that lists schools with higher acceptance rates. So it’s not like the site emphasizes only low acceptance schools. But why are students not creating chance me threads for high acceptance schools? I have my theory, but perhaps others (like maybe @skieurope who has been a student much more recently than most of us) are better positioned to shed light.
But that being said, I agree we should look for ways to attract all types of students and keep them engaged on this site.
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Perhaps just have tags but not breaking them out into separate categories?
Don’t have strong opinions on Parents Corner vs Parents Cafe
I think it depends. If it’s about a student applying to college, then it makes sense in that category. But oftentimes it’s about parenting approaches, or resources (beyond resources for colleges that are good for certain needs), etc. I still think it’s helpful for that to remain a distinct space.
I’m another one who tends to read by latest posts, and am unlikely to look at specific subcategories. I can easily see how it might become a challenge to figure out under which subcategory to start a thread. Perhaps just having a tag option, and then also having a description of Parents Corner/Care as a place to discuss non-college items including travel, cooking, health & wellness, etc.
Works for me.
I did not realize this. Perhaps there could be a tagline for CC like College Confidential: For College & Beyond or something like that.
I concur.
I can’t agree with this more. Not only is it pointless (i.e., how many ways can we say these schools are reach schools for everyone), but I think it is harmful to young people. It kills me when there are very academically strong students who think of themselves as not-that-great because they are reading what others are saying they’ve done in a chance me post. And I strongly suspect that it discourages students who are more along the lines of “typical” college-bound kids from posting here. It takes a lot of courage to walk into a place where everyone has a 3.9+ GPA and a 1450+ SAT and say hey, I have a 3.5 and a 1200 SAT and I’d like some advice (noting that a 3.5 and a 1200 is above average!).
And speaking as just one user, the fewer non-superlative students there are posting here, the less engaged I feel. Most of the superlative students gunning for the sub-20% (or heck, the sub-10%) schools rarely post anything outside of their thread and oftentimes don’t even come back to the thread they started. But they’re creating lots of Chance Mes that I suspect have negative effects on a lot of students, and the responses are largely the same. (We could create separate Chance a Superlative Student templates for Pre-Law, Pre-Med, Finance, CS, and engineering and eliminate 95% of Chance Me posts for the answers to those students.) But I find that the students that are less uniformly superlative tend to interact more, respond back to posters’ questions, and be more receptive to feedback.
Concur again.
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I don’t necessarily think CC emphasizes only low acceptance rate schools, but the people CC currently attracts seem to overly emphasize those schools.
I applaud the posts created by @AustenNut that you mention above.
In the “Colleges and Universities A-Z” category there are almost 730K threads. Just shy of 45% of those threads are found within the USNWR Top 25 schools listed there. If you expand it to the Top 30 they account for over 55% of the threads. There are over 400 other schools in that category. When 7% of the schools account for 55% of the threads it highlights a lost opportunity to engage a massive student population.
Perhaps if CC catered to parents less, they’d attract more students.
As for the changes posted in the OP, I’m for the admins making any changes they believe will consolidate the redundancy and make the site easier to navigate for the new user.
The only way I ever use this site is first I check NEW threads and then I check UNREAD threads. That’s it. I feel like there are WAYYYYYY too many topics and consolidating them down is a wonderful idea.
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This is how I navigate too. I am never on the home page, looking at all those forum types.
This is what I think would happen if we stopped chance me threads too. I think students aren’t doing chance me threads for 40%+ acceptance rate schools because there’s less of a need for that. And I also expect students who aren’t gunning for highly selectives (which is most students) aren’t motivated to post on CC or Reddit.
Maybe CC could have a ‘list-building express’ forum (or whatever name)…that’s really what many students and parents need help with, including those who start with a chance me thread…because that’s often what those threads turn in to.
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I think the Chance Me threads appeal to the students. Although the schools they initially list might not be all that realistic, it opens the conversation to factors a student might not have considered, and often leads to suggestions about other schools that might be a good fit.
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And remember the last time they fixed whar wasn’t broken, it took almost four years for the site to return to tolerability and for the regulars to come back…
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Me too…and I would prefer the current way the Parent Cafe is “organized”.
Parent Corner to me sounds like a term that would be used in a primary school.
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This is just a redesign of the homepage so I am confident it will go pretty smoothly. Back then we switched platform, which meant a total conversion from one technical solution to the other. I started this discussion because I want to make sure we are making decisions that make sense. The goal is to improve things not break them. 
I would argue that the current homepage is broken as many inexperienced users find it overwhelming and don’t know how to navigate.
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My first thought was that it sounded like Pooh Corner.
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Are you going to have a beta version for people to test and provide feedback on?
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@lkg4answers, yes, I provided details in my first post. You should be able to log in with the same credentials.
Interesting. I tried yesterday and it didn’t look any different than the current layout. It does now. And the blue box X works on that theme! 
Thanks!
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You need to be logged in to see the changes. Otherwise it looks exactly as the live site.
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Looking at the prototype
Can you capitalize the titles of each box? Or is uncapitalized the look you are going for?
Under categories
- How is the drop down sorted? It isn’t alphabetical. It isn’t largest to smallist. Is it by most recent post? I would keep the sorting logical and consistent (alphabetical or largest to smallest) so that people who come back frequently know that they always select the 4th option if they want “search & selection”
- Can you expand the characters so it says “College Confidential Community” and not “College Confidential Comm…”
- Can you write a short description under each of the drop downs so people know what College Confidential Community means?
- Parents of Class of 20XX probably doesn’t need the word “community”
Tags: Wasn’t there a long thread about this? I would like if the tags were consistent and defined. As it is now, there are too many tags with duplicate meanings.
Why is there a drop down of categories and a categories box with no drop down?
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@lkg4answers, thanks for the detailed feedback. 
By drop down I assume you mean the categories on the left side, correct? Those are sorted based on importance with most important, most trafficked forums being at the top.
The order does not change, so the 4th option will always be the same.
I am seeing it as “Community.” It may be a screen size issue that is compressing the title.
I agree.
That’s something we can definitely add.
Honestly we have given up on tags. I personally use them strategically for the sole purpose of grouping certain posts and make them easier to find. Someone proposed using tags for certain student types. I think that’s an excellent idea. I think putting together more guidance on how to use tags and what tags are recommended is needed.
I don’t know what you are referring to. Can you please explain or share a screenshot?
This depends on the particular student. For example, as a student, I don’t like social media and Reddit, to say the least.
Yep! I’ve found these all particularly helpful, thank you all for having CC for having such an excellent variety of sources. If I was told to rank these, I personally believe that Chance/Match Me (1), Decisions Calendar (2), and Essay Review (3).
Yep, this is an excellent thread I wish existed before I applied to college! 
Is it possible these can be in both? I know I once posted in that LD thread for advice on accommodations/schools who typically give good disability support/services and it generated a ton of helpful answers, but I liked the input I was getting from the parents but then again if you put them in A2C students are more likely to reply and help other students with learning disabilities. Once again, possibly not my best point–but I cannot find the words to articulate it right now…sorry.
It was…but once you accidentally get an addiction to this site you realize you can navigate it easily! :]
I don’t really think I have any concerns on the restructuring of CC, but I feel like if one fateful day I open a new looking CC that since I don’t react to change well I might spend less time on the site. But then again, that’s just a theory, right? I already spend more than enough time here 
.
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Something is weird on my desktop (Chrome). Yesterday, I followed the link logged on and it looked identical to what we have now. I opened the thread today and it looks not all that different except it has the banner warning me that it is a previewed theme. It prompted me to log in once. After that, it kept me logged on even when I logged off.
Below is what I meant by two categories boxes and cutting off the word community.
The preview on my phone is different. I don’t use my phone much so can’t compare to the previous layout. I think it looks cleaner without the numbers next to each listing.
If I tap on the carat, it points to the word, turns the word blue but doesn’t change anything. I can’t tap on the carat a second time to get it to turn black and point down again. Am I looking at the wrong place?
I can’t scroll past Paying for College.
I would call the category under Parents Corner “Travel” rather than “Travelling.” And in the US, it’s usually spelled “traveling,” anyway.