Threads that, no matter what the original topic, end up splitting hairs over the various California schools. Pretty sure even threads like “Your Good Buy of the Day” could entice some to debate which UC school is the better buy.
Ones that assume that “big sports” schools are huge party schools with subpar academics.
And the reverse: ones that assume that a school without a big time sports scene has no “school spirit.” 
@ChoatieMom right there with you. Virtually every thread title that refers to the Ivies and/or UCs is incredibly tiresome to read. Especially the ones where OOS students are looking to attend the UCs with financial aid or looking for a way to cheat the system to eventually get in-state tuition.
I’ll just put this idea out there: there should be a “North Carolina colleges” subforum under the “State forums” section. As well as a “Virginia colleges” subforum. Seriously, two of the top three public university systems in the country can’t even get their own forum?
I like @LBad96’s idea, and it ties into my wish that there was more of an opening to talk about public university **systems/b here on the CC fora.
This annoyed me. But it was on a Facebook forum, not here. A mom complained that she shouldn’t have to pay full tuition if a class “was just going to be taught by the TA.” Apparently her child didn’t do well in a class and the excuse that there was a TA was made. SMH. I think there’s an attitude that if you pay out of state tuition you deserve to get a good grade.
@dfbdfb but, can we actually make a thread about this?? Seriously. Lol
OK, how about threads that incorrectly use quotes in the title? I’m not sure why otherwise bright kids can’t seem to understand what quotation marks are for.
Words like “early” or “late” or “technically” or “innocent” or “guilty” tend to be quoted, when they’re not quoting anyone. I think they’re trying to imply that those words are a matter of opinion, when in reality they’re not. They’re not subjective words-- each has a very concrete meaning.
They are not always incorrectly used.
http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/quotes.asp
What may bug you, which does bug me, is when the quotes are used to use (in the OP’s mind) a non-standard term, that is really a standard term. e.g. I was accused of “cheating.” Ummmm, no. You were accused of cheating. No non-standard usage here because you did cheat.
Right.
My objection isn’t to the quotes, it’s to the use of them to excuse the poster’s actions-- to imply that his application isn’t really “late”, that he’s not really “guilty”, that he didn’t really get “expelled”, that he didn’t really “fail.”
Any thread that adds the most important details of the OP…MUCH later in the thread.
Just say it all in the OP.
Most annoying threads IMO:
–threads in which people belittle the OP or fellow posters or make ad hominem attacks.
–threads in which the OP has stats in the middle 50% range for a college but some posters tell OP not to bother to apply because stats are not in the top 25%
–threads that people use as an opportunity to vent political views and veiled racism, complaining their child could have gotten into a certain school is only they had been a URM. Have they looked at the stats of successful Questbridge applicants? The URMs who make it into top colleges often perform similarly to top wealthy and white applicants who often earned similar stats with fewer hardships. And the fact that colleges seek diversity to enhance all kids’ experiences does not mean that your particular child would have gotten in if only (s)he had been a member of a minority group, so stop blaming successful members of minority groups for stealing your child’s birthright to superiority.
–similarly, posters that describe the non-religiously-affiliated (ever), fully secular Brandeis as “too Jewish” because many (although not even a majority) of its students are of Jewish ethnicity and it was founded by Jews. Really? Do people ever call Boston College “too Irish” or Bowdoin “too Protestant”? Semi-veiled anti-Semitism.
–posts that use terms like “Little Ivy” or “Public Ivy.” I am a Williams grad and it is a great school, but it is not anything “Ivy.” There are exactly eight colleges in the Ivy League; the term applies only to them, and is not a synonym for “prestigious,” although those 8 schools are all prestigious, great schools. So why do people argue over, for example, whether Connecticut College or Lafayette (both great schools, BTW) is a “Little Ivy,” or ask, “Is Johns Hopkins an Ivy?” (another great school, but in a different sports league), etc.
–Related to that: threads in which posters want to get into “an Ivy.” (They are all prestigious and wonderful colleges, but they are very different from one another otherwise!)
–Threads where someone is worried about the difference in “prestige” between two schools that are both awesome, like Williams and Haverford. There is really no difference in the level of education between schools ranked #1 and #12 or #20. I am not saying prestige does not matter somewhat, but such posters are not comparing schools like, say, Williams and Hofstra, where there actually is a real difference in the type of students who attend.
Note: I am not knocking Hofstra. Nice school. I even have taken courses and earned a certificate from it. But the difference between Hofstra and Williams is much more quantifiable, and the difference in atmosphere much more pronounced, than that between Williams and Haverford, where any concerns about differences should be more in the area of small cultural differences and personal “fit” than of prestige.
–Posts where people state that small liberal arts colleges are unsuitable for science majors. Have they looked at the PhD rates in the sciences coming out of top small liberal arts colleges vs. top universities? The LACs shine!
–Threads where people state that you can’t get a lucrative job if you become a philosophy or classics major. Wall Street and top medical and law schools are filled with people who majored in such areas! College is a time to explore what you love intellectually, with like-minded peers and professors.
Otoh, TheGreyKing, I do love a good vent. ^^
^^I bow to TheGreyKing. Plus any thread that uses the acronym ‘WASP’.
@TheGreyKing, I generally agree with you, but the term “public ivy” comes from a published work—and since “ivy” has developed a meaning other than the similarly-named sports conference in discussions of colleges, it (and “little ivy”) would still totally work, even if it wasn’t from that sort of source.
People who talk about “little ivies,” “potted ivies,” “public ivies,” and “the ivy of the south/west/Midwest/whatever.”
People wo post nonsense because, I guess, they;re bored. Or oopid. Maybe, both. Haha.
@Studious99 potted ivies???
@2mrmagoo especially when someone says that top Catholic colleges are too “waspy”.
Thank heavens I havent seen “the Harvard of the South” in a while 8-|