If you choose to participate in the College Confidential Forum, you agree to abide by the rules and policies detailed below and more fully in our complete Terms of Service (“Terms of Service”) available here and our Privacy Policy ("Privacy Policy"), available here.
Although the administrators and moderators of College Confidential will attempt to keep all objectionable messages off this forum, it is impossible for us to review all messages. All messages express the views of the author, and neither College Confidential, nor the developers of this software will be held responsible for the content of any message. Please note that posts are PERMANENT and cannot be edited or removed at a later date.
By agreeing to these rules, you warrant that you will not post any messages that are obscene, vulgar, sexually-oriented, hateful, threatening, or otherwise violative of any laws. You agree that you will be courteous in your posts, and that you will not post anything which advertises or promotes any business or web site.
College Confidential reserves the right to remove, edit, move or close any thread for any reason.
General Behavior Our forum is expected to be a friendly and welcoming place, and one in which members can post without their motives, intelligence, or other personal characteristics being questioned by others. Members who post in a manner that makes other members unwelcome or uncomfortable, or who conduct themselves in a manner in any way detrimental to the College Confidential community, will lose posting privileges. Also, please do not use an offensive or inappropriate avatar image or user name; we reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to change any avatar or user name that we deem to be offensive or inappropriate.
Language All posts will be in English. Be descriptive, specific, and succinct in your postings. This way your opinion and point is clearly understood and referenced. Posts that do not meet our language guidelines will be deleted.
Courtesy At College Confidential, we expect discussion to be courteous even when disagreement may be vigorous. When writing your messages, please use the same courtesy that you would show when speaking face-to-face with someone. Flames, insults, and personal attacks will not be tolerated. It's fine to disagree with opinions, ideas, and facts, but always with respect for the other person. Also, note that messages express the thoughts of the writers, not the community, its owners, staff, or moderators. Visitors who post discourteous messages will be warned; repeat offenders will lose posting rights.
Commercial Posts, Repetitive Posts, Spam Posts promoting web sites, products, or services are not allowed. Affiliate links and URL or promotional signatures are not allowed. Please don't create extra work for our moderators by posting promotional notices on our boards. We recognize that occasionally a post may contain a URL which could be of value to our visitors. Users who post commercial messages will be warned or lose posting privileges. Repetitive posts, numerous posts that do not comply with our Terms of Service, solicitations by private message or email, and other egregious incidents of spam will be reported to the abuse department of the poster's Internet Service Provider and/or national spam tracking organizations.
Politics, Religion, etc. Politics, religion, and similar controversial topics should be discussed only as directly applicable to college matters. College Confidential is not a debating society. Hence, "Would a Catholic be comfortable at BYU?" or "What is the political environment at Grinnell?" are fine. "Democrats (or Republicans) are evil!" and other opinions unrelated to the college process are not allowed. Homework help posts are not allowed - please do your own work, and don't clutter the forums with requests for other members to do your work for you. Embedded or hidden content in posts is not allowed.
Repetitive and Inflammatory Topics Because of the high volume of posting and constant arrival of new members, we find that certain topics are raised over and over again as new discussions. Some of these topics tend to produce repetitive debates that don't produce new arguments or insights, but lead to conflict and Terms of Service violations by members. One example of such a topic is "affirmative action" when discussed in a "pro vs. con" sense. Discussions of such repetitive topics may be closed, consolidated, or removed at the discretion of the moderators. These same topics may be discussed in a variety of legitimate ways. For example, a College Confidential member may need to understand how affirmative action might apply to his/her chances, or how it is used in the admission process of a particular institution. Such discussions are completely fine, though hijacking these discussions to turn them into broader debates is not.
Word Filtering The forum will automatically filter certain words, including many swearwords as well as words, websites, and names that have been targeted by commercial promoters here. Please do not attempt to "spell around" the filter. If a term you are trying to use is in the filter, do not use it. Deliberately evading our filter will cause loss of posting privileges.
Copyrighted Material and Email Content Please do NOT post copyrighted material in our forum. Examples of copyrighted material include articles from publications or websites, book excerpts, or any other content which you have not created yourself. Fair use allows brief excerpts, e.g., a sentence or two, from copyrighted material for the purposes of review and commentary; please do not post more than that length from any source. Also, for legal reasons, please do not quote the text of e-mail communications; such material may be paraphrased if appropriate (and if not privileged or confidential) but should not be reproduced in the forum.
Links to Forums, Blogs, Social Network Pages, Photos, Videos, and Personal Sites Please do not post links to other discussion forums, blogs, personal sites, photos, videos, or other non-authoritative sources. This includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and similar sites/apps. In order to fulfill our mission of being the best college discussion forum, we want important topics to be discussed here at College Confidential. Linking to discussions elsewhere defeats this purpose. Links to non-authoritative sites like blogs, personal sites, etc., can't be researched for validity on an individual basis and hence are not allowed. All such links will be removed. Similarly, please do not post email addresses or solicit private messages or email communications from other members. While occasionally you may choose to contact an individual member via email or private message when the member accepts such messages, solicitation of such contacts in the forums is not permitted. Links to inappropriate photos, videos, etc. will always be prohibited.
Updated February 1, 2018