I joined Classmates.com shortly after I graduated from high school 5 years ago. You can join the site for free or you can opt for a paid membership, which I will explain later. I am a free member, so some of the features are not available to me, however I feel like I get as much as I would like from this website.

Signing up is very simple. As a free member, you can have your name listed in your high school and year of graduation, write a short biography, and fill out a questionnaire which gives a little more insight into what has been going on since you walked across that stage and took that diploma. Some of the questions you can fill out include things like favorite memories, current pets, major events in your life since graduation, and other things like that. Of course any of this is optional, if you want to only list your name then that is all you have to do.

The majority of the people who have registered in my alma mater have opted to not fill out any of the additional information, so all I have is a name and year of graduation. Well guess what, I already knew that much. I want to know about your life now! The fact that additional information is not required bothers me somewhat, because the main point of the site is for you to keep in touch, which would include an update on your life.

With a paid membership, which according to the site is $29.50 per year, you can send messages to members of your class,post Now and Then photos of yourself, link to your homepage, and enjoy some member only deals to other websites (coupons, software, etc.). Honestly, it is not worth it to me to pay the money when there are only a handful of benefits. The only paid member benefit that I would even be remotely interested in is being able to send messages to people, but there are so many search sites now that with a current name and location I could probably find an e-mail address fairly easily on my own.

Classmates.com has some other features besides the alumni listings. There is the Reunion Center, which gives tips and recommendations about class reunions, stories from members who have found old friends through the site, and you can sign up as a Reunion Contact for your class. There is the Celebrity Yearbooks section, which is just kind of for fun and shows you where your favorite stars went to high school, what they looked like, what they participated in, and other tidbits. The Message Boards allow you to communicate with people from your high school.

The site is fairly easy to navigate. The homepage of the site is a bit wordy, and sometimes seems a little cluttered, but it is not too bad. There is a search feature if you want to look for friends from other high schools, and you can browse through other high schools and even military listings. There is also a optional e-mail alert feature that will let you know when thee have been new alumni register with your high school.

I have enjoyed browsing through listings at Classmates.com and look forward to receiving an e-mail periodically letting me know some one new has registered. I just wish I could find out more information on some of my old friends. I would really like to know how they are!



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