<p>I probably can't visit most of the schools I'd like to apply to, so I was wondering if studentsreview was a good source. I'd imagine that the dissatisfied would be the most vocal group, but there are plenty of colleges that are very, very positive (Amherst, Northeastern, Brown) and others that are pretty bad (Boston College). Is it a bad idea? It's worrying because some of the colleges I like (BC, Emerson) have a lot of negative reviews.</p>
<p>Should I worry?</p>
<p>You have hit the nail on the head about negative people in general being the most vocal. Also consider the number of respondents that go into the evaluations. What you call "a lot" of comments probably isn't really a lot, given all of the students that attend and have attended these schools. If it is a relatively small number (which it usually is on that site), ask yourself if you really want to base a decision on the comments of a handful of people. I can understand the strong desire to get unvarnished opinions of a place, since it seems you can never really believe the official "party line". Note that it is tough to get at "the truth" even if you do visit a school; usually, there really IS no single "truth", since each individual has his or her own experiences and takes on a place. But no, I wouldn't give studentsreview too much weight in my evaluation.</p>
<p>Zero cerdibility. It is easy to post a bunch of negative stuff even if you never went there.</p>
<p>I think the online version of the c o l l e g e p r o w l e r [delete extra spaces] books is much more insightful.</p>
<p>There is nothing that is going to take the place of an actual visit, but if you absolutely can't visit, then get your information from a variety of sources and not just studentreviews. Does your H.S. have a system where you can contact other families that have chosen to attend certain colleges through the guidance dept? If not, then maybe ask your guidance counselor if she can put you in touch with some families. Look at ******* as mentioned above, princetonreview and any other review sites or message boards you can find for a college.</p>
<p>Studentsreview is absolute trash. I agree that college ******* is a better source.</p>
<p>Take student review with a grain of salt, but do realize that there is very often a few grains of truth to what you read, especially if you see any recurring themes between reviews.</p>
<p>The college visit reports on this site are really helpful. I also think the reviews at theu give a good idea of most schools, too.</p>
<p>I think studentsreview can provide some valid information ONLY if you cross-check it with other sources - like the cp source mentioned above and also several college guides. Look to see if the same themes are present in all/several of them.</p>
<p>For instance, one college I know of has numerous reviews on studentsreview about bad social life for guys who are not in fraternities. this cross-checks with some comments on cp. But then a student must think about what they're really looking for. Do they plan to join a fraternity? Were they a non-partier in HS and so don't care about lack of parties?</p>
<p>You might also want to check blogs written by students at different colleges. </p>
<p>Also do a search for your college on this site and read comments by parents and students -</p>
<p>I think that source is just plain BS. The Fiske guide is a great place to start. Once you've found schools that interest you, you can either ask their admissions offices to put you in touch with student reps, or you can try to contact people on your own.</p>
<p>Parents, a good way to test studentsreview (and other sources) is to see what they say about your alma mater. For my college, I found that studentsreview had several reviews that were probably written by college staff (totally glowing, used non-student language), and several that hit the nail right on the head (i assume written by students)</p>
<p>I think you are asking for trouble to rely on studentreviews or similiar sites. They can only give snippets of experiences --good and bad-- from a limited number of students. It is hard to get an overall sense of a school from them. I agree that other sources mentioned previously are better, such the college visits info on CC. Comments on student reviews and and similiar sites are useful only insofar as they may raise questions or concerns that might be of interest to you that you hadn't thought about, but they should be researched and confirmed elsewhere (by talking to kids who attend the school or asking questions on CC of kids who attend the school). </p>
<p>When you can't visit, I think you constantly need to ask yourself whether the gripes or compliments about a school (whether from student reviews or on CC or elsewhere) are things that are important to you and if important, how important.</p>
<p>I use studentsreview.com, theu.com (bad thing about this is that they only have info on 50 or so very popular universities), and colleg-admission-essay.com, CC, and Princeton Review. I also read U.S. News and World Report's College Editions as well as Newsweek/Kaplan's College Edition.</p>