If one asks questions that are easily answered on a university’s website, does that mean...?

[maliboo_girl]

It could mean that they're lazy, or really not internet smart. One of the smartest, most ambitious kids I know doesn't go on the internet, only got a facebook because she was running for school president and the other candidates were campaigning on fb (she won). Since many kids do research through specific legit websites (JSTOR, etc) they may not know how to search efficiently on Google. Many times the college website search engines are horrific. One has to know the specific words or phrases that the college uses to find info.

Or, it could be that the college websites suck with how they have their info. Some have me very ticked off the way some info is hidden, or incomplete, or doesn't explain how things work. If you don't know how things work, how are you supposed to know that info is missing? Sometimes even when I've seen the info, it is almost impossible to find it again -- and I know it's there. (So I had my son print out all the pertinent pages and keep them in a binder, it's really better than looking at the info online when you're getting down to doing apps.) Sometimes it doesn't make common sense at all as to where the info is buried. If I can't find the cost of attendance or freshman profile in a second, that tells me that the website sucks.

Because I saw the huge difference in college counseling between my son's private school and his friends from public schools (even the top public schools in our state), I volunteer at a community center to help kids with their apps, etc. I figure if the process had me getting aggravated, and I have been on the internet forever (made lots of $$ with aol stock, that's how long), that kids and their parents are going to be having problems too. Some high school college counselors are terrible, some schools don't even have counselors, even at top public school districts they may share one counselor between several schools. So kids may not be able to get info easily at school.

Application time is a very stressful time when many kids are losing their minds. Even the brightest. If someone is here to be helpful and answer questions, it doesn't hurt to cut the kids some slack. Why bother if one is just going to be snarky, that in itself says a lot about a person's life. Some kids are lazy, but if one has the info and took the time to look at the question, why not just put them on the right path and teach them how to do it themselves? And many of those snarky posters give bad info, if someone doesn't know info about specific colleges, they shouldn't answer (the same questions - wrong, over and over again).

So no, it doesn't mean that they aren't university material.