<p>I've recently been reading up on a few college student review sites for a couple of the colleges I'm interested in. Usually most of the reviews are positive while there are the usual negatives. However, some of the negative reviews I've read for a certain school are REALLY negative - there's no pros, just cons. And then some of the positive reviews are REALLY positive, almost as if they were written by someone who is in the school's administration. (I'm not saying they are but some of them just seem a little unrealistic) So my question is, have you ever read reviews and then found them to be accurate, inaccurate, in between or have you found that they not a "fair" indicator of what the school is like?</p>
<p>more or less, yes.</p>
<p>To me, they just show another small "part of the elephant" and aren't to be taken as the whole picture. They've brought up interesting points that I may not have considered about the school, but I haven't let anything posted keep me from looking further. Those sites are just one of many wonderful tools on the net for researching, but there is NO substitute for going and seeing the school in person.</p>
<p>Can anyone suggest some good college student review sites? The recent NYT Magazine college issue had an article about *****. I checked it out but had trouble getting some of the videos to work.</p>
<p>^^^^For some reason, many web sites cannot be mentioned here and will be deleted, as shown in the previous post. You have to be somewhat cryptic with answers: student reviews dot com or college growler dot com (change the g to p) can be helpful. Doesn't mtv have some college videos, too?</p>
<p>Thanks, toledo. Yes, I was surprised the site I referred to was deleted. Anyway, the information about it is available to all in the NYT Magazine.</p>
<p>Be very skeptical of the reviews on those sites. My school's spot on students review dot com was full of angry, bitter people who said that the school was horrible, that the academics would suck the life out of you, that there is too much busywork, that you would have no friends, etc. I came here anyway and found NONE of these to be true. I am loving my school and having a great time, even though I'm in a moderately hard major (CS). I'm not saying these sites are useless, but really, take it with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>It depends on your own feelings towards the school. For example, if you like it, you'd agree with reviews that say things like "professors are willing to help during their office hours, there's so much to do on campus, and there's definitely strong bonds between students." however, if you don't like a school, you'd probably agree with a different interpretation by a student who didn't like it, such as "the main classes are taught by TAs and you only get to talk to the teacher during their office hours, the campus is way too big and you really get lost in the crowd, students are always drunk, clique-y, and only care about sports."</p>
<p>So you can't really rely on a statistic that says "78% of students like this school!" or something like that. You either like a school or you dislike it, and that determines which reviews you will find accurate. You've really got to visit, stay overnight, etc--do all those things, before you know if you like a school or not. So in my opinion, the accuracy really depends on yourself. Don't take anyone else's word for it--I spent a year listening to my friends bashing a school I really wanted to go to, and praising one I didn't like that much. I went to one and spent a lot of time at the other before deciding, and found that I agreed with the reviews that matched my own viewpoint, and didn't really see much truth in the others.</p>
<p>I looked up my college on one of those sites, and got a lot of negative reviews. People were saying the school wasn't challenging enough (i.e. the programs sucked), that there was no social life and no parties, since it's a dry campus.</p>
<p>The college is a lot different than that, though. People still party, even though we're not supposed to. The academic programs are really good (nursing and pre-vet are the most prominent majors, and both programs have really good reputations).</p>
<p>I don't know why those people seemed to hate it so much, but in my opinion 98% of the reviews were wayyy off. I wouldn't trust those sites too much.</p>
<p>I'd like to look at some of these sites... Where can I find them?</p>
<p>Newstudent, I will PM you since links aren't allowed to be posted or whatev</p>
<p>I think some of the sites are quite accurate in getting a feeling for the school. You get some positive responses and some negative, but overall you can get an overfeeling for what the school is about based on the reviews I've read. Some of the specifics mentioned can be quite helpful.</p>
<p>I agree with you Lily, and another poster who said that the reviews tend to seem so extreme (+,-) is because it's either a majority of people who really LOVE the school that will take the time to write a review and then people who are bitter and go bash the school</p>
<p>When I go to that site I tend to like for opinions that are constant in most of the reviews</p>
<p>Think about students you know. Would they be accurate or not? Some are excellent others have an axe to grind (one way or the other). My be a way to sort a big list, but a visit to a short list is probably better.</p>
<p>i found unig0 to be very helpful...</p>
<p>If you bother to take the time writing a review then you are going to have a really strong feeling either for or against the school. I wouldn't trust everything unless there are 50+ reviews that say the school is bad/good in this aspect etc or something.</p>
<p>From what ive heard about them, the important thing to get out of them is trends and things that are common between many reviews. What one person says can't really be trusted, because the experience is different for everybody. One thing i did get out of these websites is that George Mason is far more of a commuter school than i had thought.</p>
<p>^^^
same here and for ODU :p</p>