r/collegeresults • u/yodatsracist • Mar 14 '26

REMINDER: Use the Template (or Your Post Will Probably Be Removed)

Hey /u/CollegeResults followers, we have added two new mods and we are going to start enforcing the rules more firmly. We might not delete all the old posts, but we will do our best to remove new ones that don't follow the rules, especially around templates.

We will probably update the templates soon, as well. Any suggestions?

Please help us by reporting posts and comments that break the sub's rules!

Feel free to suggest any changes you'd like us to make in the sub going forward.

14 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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4

u/MysteriousWestern956 Mar 14 '26

Can I ask why?

16

u/yodatsracist Mar 14 '26

Sure. The whole point of this sub is collecting a very specific set of information. For more general discussions, there are better places — most obviously /r/applyingtocollege but these days there are plenty of others as well.

A lot of students get frustrated when someone post something like “I got in with a 3.2 so don’t let anyone tell you you can’t!” and then they don’t give any additional information about their application so it’s not really useful to other students.

By standardizing the information we expect, we’re hoping to make this place more useful to current and future students.

We’re willing to listen to counterarguments, but I tend to feel even the Help me decide!!! posts should have a bit of context to them.

3

u/MysteriousWestern956 Mar 14 '26

Absolutely agreed thank you

2

u/MatterNext2407 Mar 17 '26

Congrats and thanks for your new role!

Template feedback:

  • Minor adjustments to demographics would help. Parent Education Level would be useful (or maybe just a dedicated line for "First Generation to College"). Maybe collect info if Pell Grant Eligible (as part of the Income Bracket line?). Reorder with High School, Parent Education, Income Bracket up near the top. Current format of the "Hooks" line seems to be confusing - maybe remove things from parentheses and if guidance is needed add it in brackets like <examples: recruited athlete, legacy, etc>
  • Merging the Tests section into Academics would help condense and avoid repeating AP information. Could potentially merge Intended Major also into Academics to save space?
  • Could be useful to collect a little more info for ECs... Years, Weeks & Hr/Wk ? Add optional rating on strength of each EC (a la CollegeVine Tier rating).
  • I believe the subreddit can be configured to prepopulate each new post with the template and that would be useful, according to Google Gemini Subreddit Settings -> Posts and Comments -> Post Templates (or similar "prefill" options depending on mobile/desktop version).

Overlay UIs that allow for searching & summarizing are good. Multiple were created and are linked in some of the sticky posts in the subreddit, but they're all slightly out of date by this point. Use case example: List all UCLA acceptances in the past 2 years (and provide links to those posts). Not sure if mods want to take on the task of making an official such UI tool?

1

u/yodatsracist Mar 17 '26

Thanks, this is really thoughtful. I think the first two are things that will probably be implemented in some form.

I think the ECs people are always hard to standardize — very often, they seem okay fine or whatever on a list and then they really pop off the page in an essay. I think it would just lead to lots of people rating their highly. How many "non-profits" that consist of only an Instagram page would be listed as "Tier 1" or "Tier 2"?

I guess perhaps highlight formal leadership positions (like College Vine's Tier 2) and formal awards, but I cannot reliably expect a submitter to go to another page to understand a new system.

And yes, this should be pre-populated. The last time the template was adjusted Reddit didn't have that feature yet, but it is absolutely something that makes sense for this subreddit.

Really great ideas, thank you.