College Confidential, an online forum for students and parents to come together to discuss all things college admissions, has — as of this writing in 2024 — been around for 21 years. It’s quite a long time! While we at Ivy Coach have been around for 32 years, 21 years is a long time to remain relevant. But, its endurance aside, is College Confidential an accurate source to learn about the highly selective college admissions process?

No, College Confidential Is Not an Accurate Source for College Admissions

Let us be clear: College Confidential, while it may help students and parents feel like they’re part of a community as they navigate the churning waters of elite college admissions, is not an accurate source of information on the college admissions process. Far from it!

Sure, the platform may decrease the anxiety levels of some students and parents by simply hearing the stories of others hoping to earn admission to top universities. Still, it’s also chock full of misinformation, including but not limited to:

• Students’ success stories. Just because a student earned admission doesn’t mean they earned admission for the reasons they think. That essay they shared? What if they didn’t tell you they were a double legacy? And who’s to say their story is true anyway? There’s no way to verify the authenticity of their narrative.
•  Statistics. So often, students and parents post admissions statistics on College Confidential’s message boards that are entirely inaccurate. When we at Ivy Coach post admissions statistics, we curate them directly from college press releases and Common Data Sets — the admissions figures publicly shared by the universities themselves.
• “Chance me.” It’s the blind leading the blind as students post their GPAs and test scores along with a few activities asking fellow users to estimate their chances at top universities. But there’s so much that users — who are generally not former admissions officers at these institutions — don’t know about the student. What if the school counselor and both teachers wrote the student is “timid” in their letters of recommendation? What are that student’s chances now?
• Taking colleges at their word. Students and parents so often repost marketing material from colleges as though it’s the gospel. For example, Emory University writes on its website that they don’t measure Demonstrated Interest. Therefore, it must be true! Of course, Emory invented Demonstrated Interest! Many top colleges claim to be need-blind. Yet many of them were recently sued for, in fact, being need-aware. The list goes on. 

College Confidential Serves as a Platform to Perpetuate College Admissions Misconceptions

College Confidential is essentially a platform for students and parents to write mostly nonsense and for others to accept it as truth. Thus, we believe the platform creates a vicious cycle that only makes the process more stressful for all. Sure, students and parents can connect with one another as they all navigate the process. But these people aren’t friends. In fact, many students and parents are incentivized to spread misinformation since readers are their direct competition. As such, whatever you read on College Confidential should be read with six grains of salt and a dash of pepper.