Aside from visiting a college a few times, where else can prospective admitted students get first-hand current feedback from current students-- other than CC of course?
Is there anyplace where college student post reviews and experiences anonymously? Several college offer webinars where you can ask selected students questions, but we are looking for more [honest] opinions.
Well…when my kid was a student in undergrad, she met more than a few CC applicants and their parents…and was very willing to give a private tour and talk.
But folks knew what college my kid was at…so they could ask!
Sites like reddit have student postings. However it tends to attract the bitter and disaffected students who just want to complain.
The Varsity Tutors blog has their tutors writing about their college experiences. Use the Google Site: keyword to search for a school name
Niche has reviews
If your child has been admitted to a college, the school may have a facebook group (or yahoo group) for parents of accepted students where they can ask questions and get honest information. Check with the admissions office to find out if there is a group you can join.
Also, look at google reviews and facebook reviews (assuming the school has a facebook page).
Google reviews student and you will find many
Another site to check out is Unigo. Only caveat with all of these is that people are more likely to post if they have something to complain about (or if they absolutely love the place).
I like to look at the negative reviews on niche. See if what other people think is a negative is what you think is a negative. “The party scene is terrible” and “there is no parking on campus” both sound great to me…
We watched a lot of YouTube videos posted by students rather than the universities. I felt like it gave us a better understanding of things from the student viewpoint. We took some off the list because of trends in the student’s videos (looking at you Harvey Mudd).
I pick selected stuff from Niche and RateMyProfs. Like any rating site, it can sometimes be hard to determine whether a given metric is meaningful. For instance, Niche has a metric called “workload is easy to manage.” Twenty percent of Amherst students agree with that. For Pitzer, it’s 86%. Based on the narrative comments, I suspect Amherst students’ thoughts were along the lines of, “Easy? Who would want to go to school where the work is easy?” and said no, whereas Pitzer’s were more like “I have enough time to do the other stuff I want to do,” and said yes.
Another tip, as you read all the reviews on sites like those posted above, look at the writing style of the posters. Even if they are writing with lots of “lol’s” and using lowercase “i,” you can still tell if the students have a handle on basic grammar, have a sense of tone and voice in their writing, and know how to express themselves. Whether they love a school or hate it (and reviewing sites do tend to bring out the extremes), you will get a sense of whether they are basically well-educated. I read hundreds of reviews by high school students in this way, and found that all the kids pretty much complain about their teachers and schools for the same reasons, but you could certainly tell which high schools taught kids to write well, developed their critical thinking skills, and so on.