<p>How seriously would you take student reviews? I figure when you read and there are specific things, like Greek system is a major part and you don’t want a Greek system, then that is worth considering. But what about the pies saying who would return and such (like on **************.com)? Would you cross a college off the list because their pie is too red? Or they just get too many bad reviews?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Not necessarily. Sometimes the “negatives” for some students are “positives” for other students. My oldest graduated from a rural, remote, cold winter, small school…rural, remote, small and snow were most of the negatives in those kinds of posts…but that is what he wanted. One always needs to “filter” reviews to weed out the noise just like you filter through certain aspects when compiling an application list.</p>
<p>Oh please! How many folks who LOVE a place take the time to write a student review. IMHO only the complainers do so, so take what you read with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>My DD worked in admissions at her college for almost 4 years. One of her jobs was to read these reviews and try to verify (or not) their accuracy. She said a very few of the complaints were legit (things about dorms or food), but the Rate My Professors was not. She had many of the (hard) profs who got poor ratings. She said that in most cases they were very good instructors…and likely the complainers got poor grades.</p>
<p>Even Greek info can be skewed. There were occasional reviews of the Greek system at DDs University. But really…less than 2% of the students were Greek…so how much did that really matter overall?</p>
<p>If you read these reviews, try to put them into a context. Remember also, ONE person can write a ton of bad (or good) reviews.</p>
<p>I would take them as seriously as I take information from THIS site. For everyone praising a school to the high heavens, someone thinks it’s “not prestigious” enough, or not rigorous enough, or the kids aren’t smart enough, or the classes not engaging enough, or there are too many trees or not enough air. It’s all up to the individual. If you can go to the schools yourself, walk around ON YOUR OWN, view the insides of buildings, etc.,and most importantly, talk to current students in the kid’s major, and professors in that major, you’ll probably get a better idea of what it’s really like.</p>
<p>Also, read the local papers and the school paper. UW here is a great school but even though I have nothing to do with the school at all, I can tell you Greek life is HUGE, and that once a quarter some drunken idiot on Greek Row falls off a balcony and they usually die. And nothing changes. It’s mostly Frats-girls don’t seem to wander off balconies in such numbers, but still. You get the sense the the UW is going “la la la I can’t hear you” about this, as well as their sports teams, whose members are frequently in the news for getting arrested. Do a search on the paper’s website for the city your schools are in for that school and you’ll see what you need to know.</p>
<p>I’d use the same criteria that I use when I read reviews on Yelp or Amazon or anywhere else. You have to read the specific comments, not depend on pie charts. Intelligent, thoughtful comments are worthy of your consideration–angry spew is not. I also think that if many comments focus on the same negative–e.g., bureaucratic nightmares, poor manintenance–a red flag is flapping in the wind, and you should pay attention.</p>
<p>I do not listen to these reviews. My daughter LOVES her school despite some less than satisfactory reviews from the web site AND from family members who feel the need to butt in ie: so and so went there and hated it…</p>
<p>Yes, I found U Nigo good for some things, others not as much, but it was the ones that seemed to be well written and articulated why they disliked a school or liked it, I read. My kids, not as much. They felt only the extreme love or hate would be written but I did share some with them.
Even with professor reviews, if they got a bad mark, they might “hate” a great professor, if they love to drink, they might call “draconian” measures of a school’s drinking policies terrible, while another finds them helpful. </p>
<p>If students though, use words like isolated, can’t get off campus, etc. and you would hate that, it gives you questions to ask if you visit or write.</p>
<p>You need to read the reviews and consider things like what year the student is in (some of the better ones are written by people who graduated years ago). What is it that they are complaining about? Nothing to do on weekends? Boring party scene? Are these the issues that concern YOU/YOUR kid? </p>
<p>At one school a number of posters from different walks made statements to the effect that the campus was really rundown with a lot of broken or neglected stuff. THAT caused me to take them off our list. At another school poster after poster talked about the amount of drug use on campus. That one also got the axe. But you have to take it with a grain of salt. Go on the Harvard or MIT reviews and you will find negative ones there too.</p>
<p>A common complaint in student review forums about my undergraduate school, McGill University in Montreal, is that the winters are long, cold and snowy. Well hello! It’s in Montreal!!</p>
<p>I take those review places with a grain of salt. A lot of people downgrade a school because they don’t like the ketchup served in the cafeteria–seriously. Now, if there are 50 posts all saying the same thing-ok. Same with the rate the professor type ones, “too much homework” seems to be a common complaint–sorry kids, you are in college now. But when 50 kids all say they can’t understand the prof either because of teaching style or language issues, that is probably an issue.</p>