Why I love and hate the Net

Parent Cafe
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<p>D has a couple of schools she was in love with, others she could handle, but just not as enamored</p>

<p>Last night she was looking at studentreviews of the schools…and of course one school had some terrible reviews by "students’</p>

<p>She felt like she got slugged in the stomach, her ideals dashed</p>

<p>Who know whether the posts were accurate or not, but i read them and they were harsh</p>

<p>Anyway, the bright side is she is now widening her range of schools she can see herself at, and is more enthused about them, after re-looking at them on the Net- good thing she had already applied to the new faves</p>

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<p>Just about every school gets trashed on that site! You really need a strong stomach to venture forth. D’s theory is that the Net is a repository for people with a beef. They’re the ones more likely to spend the time logging on and writing critical comments.</p>

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<p>She needs to learn the meaning of YMMV.</p>

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<p>She knows that but still it made her wonder…which was fine…the other schools had pretty good rights ups, mostly…so…I said it could be one person posting under different names who is mad at the school…but teens and the web…</p>

<p>YMMV…you must move vertically?</p>

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<p>Your Mileage May Vary</p>

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<p>CGM, I don’t know whether your daughter was looking at studentsreview.com or a similar site, but I just checked that site for reviews of the 3 colleges my kids actually attended, and generally found information accurate, if you keep in mind that one person’s treasure is another’s trash. (My favorite quote from a review, re Humboldt State: “There are lots, and lots of trees.” Well, DUH!) </p>

<p>Obviously it is easy for one disgruntled student to provide false information, and I’d take isolated complaints with a grain of salt, but if you see a lot of repetition of the same sorts of complaints, especially if you find complaints on other sites with student reviews… then take that as a red flag. I mean, if the kids are complaining about a pervasive drinking culture on campus, there might well be one. If there are complaints about problems with the administration, red tape, difficulty with course registraiton, etc… it is very likely that problem also exists on campus.</p>

<p>On the Humboldt review page, I found a piece of recent information about a serious problem at the school that I know for a fact to be true, due to my son’s involvement with the issue – and might not be discernable from any sort of p.r. or the college web site, though you would know it if you checked out the online student newspaper – which pertains to the impact of recently announced budget cuts. </p>

<p>I’m saying this because I thing you realize with your love/hate comment that sometimes bad news has an element of truth. If it seems way out of left field, I’d question it – but if it seems to fit the college, either in terms of what you already know or the type of college environment, then it brings up issues that are good to think about well in advance. As disappointing as it is to your daughter, it would be better if she finds out about these issues now than goes off to her dream college with rosy expectations, only to find out after arriving on campus that she has made a terrible mistake. </p>

<p>EVERY school has issues and problems. If a student is only hearing or thinking about positive things about a school, they really are not doing their research. I know that no one want to hear their dream school being trashed… but the last thing you want is a student who is unhappy and wants to transfer after their first semester for reasons that could have been anticipated – such as realizing quite how isolated a small rural campus is, or how much drunken partying goes on at a school with a very active frat life, etc. </p>

<p>Example: I looked up Harvard, and among the negative comments were many complaints of large classes and lack of contact with faculty. Of course there were many, many positive comments and I chose to look up Harvard because it obviously has a well-deserved reputation for excellence… but the point is the student who goes there imagining himself engaging in long conversations over coffee with his profs might be the kind of student who belongs at a small rural LAC where faculty and students tend to have a higher degree of interaction. </p>

<p>So keep on reading. I looked up some colleges that my daughter dropped from her list after visiting, and am somewhat heartened to see that the student complaints echo some of the reasons my daughter gave for disliking those particular colleges. I wouldn’t give much credence to a single bad review … but if it all starts looking like variations on the same theme, be grateful that your d. got the heads up while there is still time to expand her college search.</p>

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<p>I’m in the same camp as calmom re studentsreview. It’s anything but a representative sample–more like a slanted view mainly from the viewpoint of the 10% who loved the school the most and the 10% who hated it most. As long as you don’t read it as broadly representative of the student experience, I think that there are nuggest of insight there, particularly when you begin to see recurring themes. I think some of the criticisms of (and compliments for) schools that I know pretty well are on target.</p>

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<p>Some of the comments in the college guide books aren’t any better. Sure there may be a kernel of truth, but if that is your only information, you get a very distorted view.</p>

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<p>Actually, we have the reverse problem, in that the one school that I think has always sounded absolutely right, continues to get “righter” with everything I read.</p>

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<p>The main thing that worries me on those sites are reports of things like not getting into classes, huge classes, lack of advisement or mentoring, too much red-tape, kids feeling like numbers. That stuff bothers me a lot, because I suspect it’s pretty accurate almost regardless of who’s doing the reporting.</p>

<p>More subtle things, like social problems, or general hateful attitudes, I think are much harder to interpret. It could be the kid reporting just has social issues, or they are disgruntled about flunking a course, or something.</p>

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<p>My D didn’t look up college stuff really online pre admission- and I didn’t so much either- it only seems to be in the last few years that resources have really exploded.
I have similar experiences to calmom and student review- re Ds school & other schools I am familiar with, I thought the info was accurate and I even recognized some of the students.
I don’t think it hurts to be aware of difficulties at some schools-
no school is going to be perfect and it helps going in, if you can anticipate some of the areas of difficulty and plan ahead.
For instance- no school- no matter how highbrow and expensive is going to be fantastic in everyway.
For example- one young aquaintance, who combined her community college courses taken in high school with classes after graduation, last year entered a top LAC known for high academics( as a junior). She likes it & she will be graduating next spring, but she has also commented that several of her community college instructors had a higher level of rigor and intensity in her classes than a few of the professors at her $$$$ college.- now if she had been paying $45,000 for 4 years- she and her parents may have been really upset- but the way it is, she gets an diploma from Oberlin- but only paid for two years of it)</p>

<p>Universities where in some majors you may still have 200 students in a 400 level class, may be a pain, but if you know what to expect, you can decide if that tradeoff is worth it.
If you think everything is going to be hunkydory just because you are paying lots of money a year & you had to jump through lots of hoops to get there, you may be really angry and upset when you find out that isn’t so.</p>

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<p>calmom and others have provided really, really good info here.</p>

<p>My own take on information is that no one wants to hear things that make them rethink what they wanted to be true. This is human. But that sort of information may save you from making a big mistake.</p>

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<p>yep…it did cause D to be less “in love” with the school, which to be honest is probably a good thing</p>

<p>and, I do think some of the posts probably had a ring of truth, so its better to really look now and strategize better</p>

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<p>so D looked up how many freshman go back to the school for sophmore year, 85-89%…so…there must be something they like…sigh</p>

<p>its like a yoyo of worry/not worry/worry…</p>

<p>ah, at least with a root canal they give you meds</p>

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<p>LOL…</p>

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<p>really?
my dentist just gives me novacain :frowning:
not hardly fun at all</p>

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<p>CGM, 85-89% return for 2nd year is not a particularly good retention rate … though I don’t think its all that bad either. But I think the top schools tend to have more like a 95% return rate.</p>

<p>In any case, you have to take things in context and look at the reasons that students may or may not return. For example, a poor retention rate can be a function of economic demographics or financial aid policies – some kids don’t come back for sophomore year simply because they have run out of money and cannot afford to continue. If your own family finances are sufficient to cover the costs, then that would be an important factor to know about, but one that doesn’t really apply to your situation – so it wouldn’t make much of a difference.</p>

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<p>Yes, novacain isn’t fun. I flinch a lot in the dentist chair and when they filled my only cavity (unless they find another one next month when I go again) they had to inject me twice because nothing got in the first time.</p>

<p>If you get fillings, get the composite resin ones. Nobody even knows one of my molars is filled. No silver at all. Plus it doesn’t have mercury.</p>

<p>Anyway, all dental issues aside, I can honestly say to not look at the retention rate to throw you off. While this isn’t a “choose a school” example, it is a teacher example. With my friends, only I said I’d take my geometry teacher again in high school. It was just a good match for me even it wasn’t for my friends. The same can be applied to colleges.</p>

<p>You need to observe the school on a day your HS has off. Go on an inservice or something so you don’t miss any HS (becuase you WILL miss HS once you hit college, trust me). A good upcoming one is Martin Luther King Day…I don’t think my school had that one off last year. Try to get there the night before if you’ve got a Monday off so you can see what goes on at night. During the day, walk around and see what the students are like, what the atmosphere is, eat in the cafeteria and try to eavesdrop on others’ conversations (especially if it’s about schoolwork or activites), maybe check out the gym and library. If you see a prof in the cafeteria, perhaps you could talk to them as well.</p>

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<p>CGM, YMMV = your mileage may vary.</p>

<p>AllMusic, we had a slightly parallel situation with our D. We were impressed with Smith on the initial contact at a party for prospective students. Every subsequent contact, visit, stay, just continued to reinforce it. I don’t know about D, but I started waiting for some shoe to drop and the coach to turn back into a pumpkin or some other mangled combination of metaphors. Never happened. It was disconcerting, though, especially when after visiting Yale, I kept thinking, “this is nuts, I like Smith better.” Fortunately, I never said anything and probably more fortunately Yale deprived D of the opportunity to dither over such a choice.</p>