I recently stumbled upon former administrator Jon’s case study of CC that he posted on LinkedIn and thought others might find it of interest. The following are his words…
College Confidential’s renewal
Recently I discovered a new thread about College Confidential on Reddit. I want to quote almost every comment because the vibe is so incredibly different. Here’s a favorite:
Well, depends on what you are looking for. Would you rather take advice from 16-18 year olds or parents that have been through the process and have stuck around to pass on some words of wisdom?
The target audience is very different. The parents forum is probably the best thing going related to college admissions in the US. Recently, they had a rolling AMA with a IB C-level exec. There is a woman who will read your essays for free and another whose wisdom related to financial aid is immense and yet another who knows so much about med school admissions.
That they can be a bit short with clueless teenagers is frankly not unwarranted.
So what happened? Honestly I don’t know, but I will take credit for a few things:
- I moved politics discussion to a private group. Social media taught us that expressing your political opinion is an affirmative duty. That’s cancer for a community. It’s especially hazardous for a community that basically believes all the same things. There’s even a term to describe the problem: the narcissism of small differences. By moving all that to a private forum, random visitors don’t get the impression that CC is a place for feuds over trivialities.
- I deemphasized the Parent Cafe for visitors. Within the Parent Forum (that the Reddit commenter praised) is the Parent Cafe which is an off-topic space for people who have been at CC for many years. While it’s a great place for people to connect with each other, it’s an odd introduction to the community. The Victorians used to have the concept of a drawing room where special guests could withdraw in order to have more private conversations. That architectural design might be outdated, but the concept of a place set aside for private conversation remains useful.
- Meanwhile, we set up a formal essay review system so that more people can participate. The actual reviews remain private, but the existence of the volunteers and the service they provide has become public knowledge.
- AMAs with members, including the one the commenter called out , have become a regular feature of the site. Beyond the immediate help people get from asking, these posts highlight the expertise of members who give free advice every day.
Please Note I am no longer participating in the IB AMA mentioned
