Who Wants to Win $250? The Corporette Survey Is NOW OPEN

59 Comments

1. As someone who works in surveys a lot you have several select all that apply that are formatted as single select.

   1. ah, shoot…

      1. I took it and also had a hard time with the select as many as apply options where I was only allowed to choose one. I’d be willing to take it again once you fix it. I like this place a lot and I want to help in any way you need help.

   2. Yep. Also, the answer choices are confusing for some items because the questions are worded differently but the scales are identical.

      1. which question(s) was confusing re different wording and identical scales? thank you!

         1. See Cat’s comment below.

         2. it’s the one that starts with tattoos and ends with skirt suits, right? I knew i tried to squish too much into that question.

            1. Yeah – there isn’t an option for something I like or would wear but is not appropriate in my office.

            2. Yep. There are a bunch of items where the answers make sense (is this or is it not appropriate in your office) and then some others that aren’t so simple and don’t fit those answers.

         3. Section 1 item 10 is one of them – it sounds like it started out as personal appearance focus but then the later questions like “company taking a position on something” the options to choose from don’t make sense. Like it’s not “inappropriate for my office” for… the office to do something.

            In Section 3 item 4, it says select all that apply but you can only select one.

   3. For the “do you have kids” type questions, how are stepmoms supposed to answer (there is no “I have stepkids” box)?

      1. ah, good point – we meant to be inclusive of adoptive parents, step parents, etc., but we’ll make that clearer.

         1. I think in many surveys the question is asking whether you live with or a caregiver to children under age XY.

2. what are your favorite AITA threads? i read one this morning that I may remember for a while… a 22yo had talked her 63yo mom into “liquidating a big portion of her $1MM savings” so the 22yo could buy a house that was “ONLY $989K”, then when her brother and sisters were like “you’re taking advantage of mom’s early dementia, and mom needs money to live because she’s only 63, plus those are our inheritances also” but the 22yo was like “yah but i’m going to pay my mom back for sure, and I especially have motivation to go back to school and get an architecture degree so I can make 6 figures quick.” so, so many red flags in one little write up.

   1. Oh, I really need a link to this one. Those threads are so addictive! Not on Reddit, but I still remember a user on AskMetafilter who was clearly in the throes of a midlife crisis and was so. awful. to his wife:

      https://ask.metafilter.com/219570/overweight-and-insecure – this thread, in which he says she just couldn’t get interested in triathlons with him, where he carefully does not mention that they have a four month old baby. bonus points for some truly awful takes from a few commenters!

   2. Sadly (or happily), a high percentage of AITAs seem fake. The ones where the OP doesn’t come back with any responses are likely fake, especially in the most outlandish scenarios.

   3. What’s AITA? It sounds like ‘reality’ tv, lol.

      1. Am I the A-hole on Reddit. Forum where people describe scenarios and people say who’s in the wrong.

   4. Fun fact, I got banned from AITA for using the word asshole one time too many. Permanently banned.

      But I follow Best of Redditor Updates now.

      1. I love BORU. I don’t bother with AITA.

   5. I’d say my favorite flavor of thread in general is where one half of a couple writes in just assuming everyone is going to agree with them (usually him) and then they get fileted in the responses. Only one time have I seen someone follow up saying they took it to heart and it opened their eyes to what a jerk they were being to their partner. Most of the time there’s arguing in the comments, then a flounce. Good stuff.

   6. My husband and I actively debated the one we had here with the main house, vacation house and house for mom for a solid week.

      1. Haha you’ve just made me identify a shortcoming with my husband.

         him: who are these people?
         me: online people
         him: you don’t know them
         me: no
         him: why are we arguing about them again?

      2. Oh man, what did the OP end up doing about the three houses? I need an update!

      3. I wish I could talk to mine about this but I’m SUCH a stalker that if I knew he regularly read/posted somewhere, I would have to read it to see what he posts, so I’ve never told him about this. I just say “I saw on the internet…” and he assumes it’s reddit (I figured out his handle, he never posts anything interesting).

   7. I hate all of them to be honest. Most of the egregious ones sound super made up and the commentariat at Reddit it totally incapable of any nuance and they drive me crazy.

3. Just tried to fill it out – quiet day! – and after filling out the 2nd page I keep getting an error message that says the survey was modified by its creator, takes me back to page 1, and wipes out all my responses from page 2.

   1. i have screwed it up (red, red face) because the multiple choice questions aren’t behaving the way i thought they would, so i need to fix it.

      1. no worries! while you’re at it, in the box that has all the options about whether things are appropriate for your workplace, not all the prompts matched up well with the options. Like “would you say to wear a skirt suit instead of a pantsuit” my answer is most definitely NO but the options to select from go from “yes that’s me” to “inapprop for my office” and none of them are right to express that reply.

         1. Likewise on question #10, there isn’t an option for I like this / I would wear it but it’s inappropriate at my office. I would definitely wear sneakers or jeans, but that’s strictly forbidden in my office.

         2. And on this question there are no pants other than jeans or athleisure.

4. Randomly: I’m the person who posted a few months ago about maybe too casually suggesting to a Facebook friend that she might be autistic. (And then I explained that we used to be really close and still direct message every month or two on FB.) She just got her autism diagnosis yesterday! I apologized again for overstepping.

   If you recently got diagnosed, what are your favorite resources? Mine are mostly parent-related. She’s high achieving — has gone to great schools and has two graduate degrees. She’s worked at a number of name companies, although she’s bounced around quite a bit for fit reasons.

   1. Is she asking you for resources? If not, I wouldn’t bother offering any…
      If she is, I find it is actually.better for me to look up “how to (specific issue I’m having)” instead of general ASD resourses. I find not a lot exists for adult females who are on the socially acceptble end of the spectrum.

      1. Right?? Learn from the last time, lol.

   2. If you had to apologize for overstepping already, it’s time to stop overstepping. She can figure this out.

5. I opened the PDF of the survey, and it case it helps with the finalizing and fine-tuning:

   Some of the questions have radio buttons when you ask for multiple answers.
   Some of the questions lack “none of the above” choices.

   It’s not possible to see from the PDF which questions are obligatory, and which are questions where you’d be fine if people skip. Example: I’m not going to fill in identifying demographic questions about US salary and political view. Partly because I don’t live in the US, but also because I’m here for the clothes. I would be very happy to give my views on blue hair (yes!), pantyhose (sure, why not) and athleisure (where is my hell no! button?), but the questions that will help you sell the site to advertisers is not well matched to overseas readers.

6. Beating the college discussion with a dead horse –

   Someone the other day was saying $88,000 a year was an exaggeration for private college tuition. I just went to Vassar’s page (my kid’s friend is currently a junior there) and the breakdown is:

   $66,870 tuition
   $17,415 housing and dining
   $935 fees

   So $88K isn’t that far fetched.

   This student, a very bright, good grades kind of kid, did not receive financial aid. I don’t know exact salaries, but her dad is in my field & at a similar level, so that’s probably $250-$300k per year. Mom is a SAHM. It is my understanding that grandparents have agreed to help out on a going-forward basis, but it’s not like there was some big pot of money sitting around. Financial aid is dead.

   1. * I missed an item. Add $2,250 for books, supplies, personal expenses, and transportation.

   2. Private college is definitely very expensive, but “financial aid is dead” is fearmongering that’s not accurate. As discussed this morning, lots of colleges give substantial need-based scholarships to families with incomes above $200k. When I was applying to college 25 years ago, it was nearly impossible to get aid if your parents had that kind of income (even if you adjust for inflation). There has been a big push at the top tier private colleges to make more need-based aid available to middle and upper middle class families.

      1. I just did Vassar’s financial aid calculation with my income and savings and got zero financial aid.

         https://www.vassar.edu/admission/financial-aid/forms/#calculate-your-cost

         go for it.

         1. The calculator seems to require a login, so I’m not going to do it but what is your income and how much do you have in assets other than retirement accounts and primary home equity? If you have substantial non-retirement savings you can expect a lot less aid even on a modest income, because the school assumes you will use most if not all of that money to pay for college. Retirement is sheltered and you can have millions in a 401k without destroying your ability to get need based aid.

            Aid varies a lot from school to school and I don’t know about Vassar in particular but many of the top tier private schools give significant assistance to families with incomes in the $150-250k range. That was not true 20 years ago when you really had to be lower middle class or poor to qualify for any need based aid.

            I have many issues with the Ivy League but the fact that they’re not subsidizing families earning $300k+ isn’t high on the list. That is objectively a LOT of money and most people earning that much could save for a high five figure college if it’s a priority.

            1. There’s no login required. Try again. I was trying it at various levels. Use the estimate calculator.

      2. I am a little confused that someone with a $300K annual income, not to mention supportive grandparents, would expect need-based aid. What more, exactly, do you need? Our HHI was in that range when our oldest 2 were in college, and I expected, and we received, zero need-based aid. If we had made Vassar a priority, sure, we could have sent a kid to Vassar. But we would have done so without expecting anyone, including Vassar, to subsidize our choice. Financial aid is most assuredly not dead.

   3. According to their website, two thirds of Vassar students get financial aid and the average scholarship award is around $50k so the majority of people are not paying anywhere near the full amount. $300k is a very high income, I think top 2-3% of American households, so it doesn’t shock me that someone who earns that much would be expected to pay the full amount. FWIW, some financial aid calculators penalize SAHMs who don’t have young children in the home – the idea being that in the absence of other caregiving obligations both parents should be earning income before the school gives you any money. I believe a couple where each spouse earns $150k would do better financial aid-wise than a couple where the dad earns $300k and the mom stays home.

   4. 250-300k/year income is a big pot of money. It’s a huge pot of money. It’s years of income for most of us.

      1. I agree but people are talking about households at this income level getting financial aid and I am calling BS.

         1. It’s not BS. I said this morning but we got ~$20k/year need-based grants on a $230k income at several different private colleges (not Vassar), and I know numerous other families with similar stories. I don’t know about $300k and my sense is that it’s around that level that aid phases out at even the most generous schools, but a mid-$200s income absolutely does not rule out getting need-based aid.

            One data point of someone who didn’t get any aid is meaningless. Many factors go into aid calculations, but in addition to income, assets are also very important. We have very substantial retirement savings but almost no cash (less than $30k) outside of retirement funds. If you have $500k just lying around in an index fund, the college will expect you to spend a large chunk of it on tuition. We knew this and were strategic about having all our money in retirement funds. I would imagine many people who earn that much have a lot more in the way of non-retirement investments than we do.

            1. I was curious so I looked at the Vassar calculator. That says we’d get an $11k annual scholarship, which is less than we got from the three private colleges my child got into, but still not nothing.
               And that’s with accurately disclosing that we no longer have a mortgage. If we had even a $300k mortgage, that would bump the scholarship up to $25k.

         2. I don’t think it was saying that there’s tons of aid available at that level, always — just that it’s not totally out the picture, especially if there are other kids in college simultaneously (and “not much aid when you make over 250k” is a long long ways from “aid is dead”!)

         3. I think Columbia is one of the most generous colleges with aid (maybe because the cost of living in NYC is so high?) but I put $300k income into their calculator and got a $15k expected annual scholarship. Even $400k was still showing a non-zero scholarship amount, depending on how much of a mortgage you have. 🤷‍♀️

            1. I don’t know how this is possible. Every net price calculator I have filled out tells me $0 aid at HHI of $230K with modest assets (we just finished paying off the giant expensive mistake that was my law school education).

            2. What’s your definition of modest? Even a few hundred thousand dollars in assets reduces your aid steeply if it’s not earmarked specifically for retirement (401k, IRA, etc).

               I have a $230k income, a house worth ~$500k with no mortgage and >$2M in retirement and we got five figure aid when my child applied to college, and that’s consistent with the calculators. But we have almost literally no money that’s not in retirement, just an emergency fund worth <$50k. If I re-do the calculator with even $200k in non-retirement savings, then the aid is cut in approx. half and if I re-do it with $400k it goes away completely. So that is likely the issue if you have those kind of assets…

               I do think it’s sort of odd that they reward people who don’t save, but that’s the system.

   5. I went to Vassar and graduated back in 2005. My dad made $140k/year at the time and my mom didn’t work. I can’t swear to it but tuition back then was probably about $50k/year. We didn’t get aid back then when I was a freshman. My parents had money saved, and they took out some loans, and I took out some loans. Then my sister went to college when I was a junior and we did qualify for a bit of aid. We got lucky- she ended up with a scholarship to state school and Vassar gave us a discount for having two kids in college. My brother didn’t go to college.

      My parents couldn’t have afforded to send 3 kids to Vassar. We talk a lot on this site about fair vs equal and college was one of those things where I got more. I was a really, really good student and my parents wanted to let me go to the best school I got into, and i wanted to go to the best school I could get into. My sister was a smart kid with a B-at-best average who ended up with a 1550 on her SATs, so the state school wanted her, and she didn’t want to go anywhere more difficult to get into. My parents encouraged her to apply to other schools, and she did–but she went with the free ride and graduated debt free (which is lucky because she then did the peace corps and then worked in restaurants for a while, then went back to grad school on a scholarship to become a physical therapist). My brother barely graduated high school and got 3 DUIs; my parents paid for his legal fees which amounted to probably half a year of college.

   6. ” a very bright, good grades kind of kid, did not receive financial aid”

      Vassar doesn’t give merit aid. The kid’s grades and test scores have nothing to do with it.

   7. MIT – $82,700
      Princeton – $83k
      Harvard – $79k

      Notably, those school have truly enormous endowments that keep their tuition lower than other schools. MIT wraps up health insurance into its $59k/year tuition.

      Move down to schools with healthy but not $50B endowments and:
      Wellesley: $88k
      Tufts: $88k
      Boston University: $86k
      Boston College: $86k plus various fees
      Columbia: $89k
      Northwestern: $91k
      University of Chicago: $89k

      Methodology: I searched for “college name” “cost of attendance” and drilled down to the university’s page. Ignore the information presented to you on the top line of google; it is out of date, based on costs after aid, or otherwise not what the university states. When the information was presented in semester format, as with BC, and did not include a complete cost, I pulled out my calculator and added it all up. I used a median dorm price when multiple dorm options were listed.

      Far fetched? I would go with “dead on balls accurate,” in the immortal words of Mona Lisa Vito in “My Cousin Vinny.”

      1. I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that many private colleges are very expensive. But only the wealthiest students pay the listed price (at MIT, 54% of families earning >$225k get need-based scholarships) and families with incomes under $100-150k often get a free ride or close to it. I’m not sure how that translates to “financial aid is dead.”

7. A few other survey comments if you’re still reading (I can’t wait to take it, and see the data).

   I agree with all the above. In addition, given the audience of this site, the HHI question seemed to have too few buckets (two junior-ish big law or two post MBA early consultants married to each other would be in the highest bucket I believe). Also a little odd to have income for the household question but salary only for the individual one.

   In the question about what types of items you wear, would love a “never” option, in addition to rarely.

   There was one question about “the bosses” requiring people in office. Some of us are the “bosses” making those decisions.

   Finally, there’s a question about stated return to office policies, but would love one about actual behavior (eg are people required in 3 days a week, but actually going in 4 or 1?).

   1. Maybe more options/responses geared to self-employed people?

   2. Kat, I believe I can be of great help in structuring a survey, as I’ve got great responses from my cleints on our Firm’s perfomance and needs from our clients and visa versa. The key is to have the cleints think rather then check boxes, as their creativity can be better unleashed that way. We provide an incentive to all cleints for completion of the survey. We deduct two billeable hours from their last bill, and apply it as a credit for a future bill (for accounting purposes) if they have already paid their latest bill.

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