Q: Exactly how does it work?

A: Topically, it is very simple to understand. Self selecting students come to the StudentsReview site and take the survey. Their survey is archived into a database, where it is analyzed statistically to determine its authenticity. If it passes, the survey appears on the StudentsReview site on the next half hour, and affects the rankings the following day. We delay the effect on rankings to prevent people from getting carried away with "making their university #1", and the delay on survey appearance to the site is done to reduce the strain on our database system and webserver for all the people visiting.

Q: What is your background?

A: StudentsReview is currently family run, with business advice from my mother and father, and graphic design from younger brother (though he takes no credit for the ugly parts of the web site, that was me).
Personally, I have a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from a well respected institution, and am currently working on my MS/PhD in Computer Science at MIT. I really love physics more than computer science -- I tend to not think there is much "science" in CS, though that is an aside. I worked as a software/internet consultant for 2 years after undergraduate (before graduate) -- I have worked on StudentsReview now for almost 3.5 years.

Q:Some schools have a lot of surveys, others not so many?

A:Because the survey rate is entirely referral driven, some schools have a high number of surveys, while others have a low amount. We are looking into involving universities in the process, so that the survey counts may be more evenly and fairly distributed across universities. As it is now, if there are universities you'd like to see more reviews for, please recommend us to someone who is a student or has graduated from that institution. Aw heck, recommend us to everyone!

Q: How accurate is the information?

A: While technically it is only as accurate as the number of surveys we get on a school, we have found that each survey provides an accurate picture on some element of the university. On a whole, we find that 5 "different" comments (focus on different aspects, with different experiences) give a well rounded picture -- more comments provide more in-depth information and detail of what is going on "behind the scenes" in the university and student environment... Every comment also provides insight into the student body -- besides reading the comment for "truth", it is important to ask "would I like to go to school with a student who makes "this type" of comment?".

Q: Could someone who either loves or hates a particular school go on and fill out numerous surveys to skew the results?

A: No, it is not possible to skew the results in this manner. Yes, we allow students fill out multiple surveys -- as many as they want in fact, but we have an extremely sophisticated statistical modeler that easily catches multiple submissions or duplicates. As far as things go, detecting multiple submissions from one person is one of the easiest things to do. But several people have tried to defeat our model so far, without success. We've had 3 years of watching survey patterns, and 6,000 known valid surveys to train on, so it actually is easier to round up 200 different people and have them all take the survey than it is to falsify data to the site.
As far as the statistics go, approximately 5% of the submitted surveys are invalid ones (either accidentally or intentionally) -- of those 5%, the statistical model catches >95%. This brings the error rate down to .2% -- 25 surveys/10,000.

In either case, if you find a survey that seems fake, please let us know! sradmin@studentsreview.com

To learn more about the statistical model, click below.

Though, because the surveyors are self-selected, it is possible for 200 like minded people to take 200 different (similar) surveys and skew the results. Currently, there is nothing we can do about that -- the surveys are valid, after all, but we are investigating ways to normalize all the institutions against strong data biases.

Q: I've read that StudentsReview is unmoderated, is that true?

A: No. We have read every single comment and survey posted to verify that they are "valid" (beyond the statistical methods mentioned above), and to determine that the comments "add or have information". We have removed few comments from the site, but the ones we have were removed because the surveys themselves were somewhat suspicious, and because they did not add information (i.e. reading like all swearing or being clearly from an admissions department). Uncensored does not mean "unmoderated", as some people take it to mean. Rather it means that we do not alter peoples' comments or take them out of context. We want the pictures portrayed to be as clear and informative as possible. If that means there is some offensive language or descriptions, so be it, their existence provides insight into the student body and conditions on campus.

Q: Some folks say this is a website for angry students to vent, that positive students don't fill out your surveys.

A: Ironically, that turns out to also be completely false. For one, we only allow a student to retake the survey once per semester. As such, their "vent" is not a message board of flames, but rather a complete, standalone negative opinion. Negative opinions sometimes (unjustly) carry a negative weight, as though they reflect something unsavory about the author, but most of the time, they provide insight into a specific problem and to reasons why others might not live the rosy-dream at a particular institution.
That said, we've found that 63% of students would return (out of 8,300 surveys) to their college if given a choice. While not necessarily the popular campus sentiment, it does reflect that StudentsReview recieves more positive responses than negative almost 2-to-1.
Also of interesting note, we took a survey of a group of students who were displeased with their university, but would not take our college survey. We found that these students were primarily embarrassed of their own opinion, blamed themselves to some degree, or felt they were too "big" to succumb to "badtalking" their university online. Interesting, but "negative" opinions are actually more difficult to gather than positive ones.

Q: What do the school administrators think about your site? Has any school ever tried to censor your findings or get you shut down?

A: I'd say feelings are mixed. Some schools have praised us for providing a great service, while at the same time, others have tried to sue us and have our data blocked. (I can think of 3 right offhand). Unfortunately, some of the most significant and damaging results have been from some university admissions, who have misrepresented themselves as students to skew our data as exceptionally favorable for their institution AND to skew it against "competing" schools. For the most part, we have been able to detect this and clean it out, but not without a certain headache.

Q: What do high students think? Do you ever get any feedback?

A: Actually, yes, we get lots of feedback. More than just a few students and parents have emailed us to let us know that we have really helped them out in their college search. We've aimed to give "answers to the questions students wish they had known to ask", and many people have thanked us for opening their eyes to issues they hadn't thought to take into account.
As far as suggestions, we have a nearly steady stream, for which it is just about impossible to keep up :) . But that's ok, we appreciate hearing from people and learning how they use StudentsReview.
There are even some parents who have gone further than making suggestions, to take an active interest in the success of StudentsReview. We highly appreciate everyone's help and feedback.

Q: Some of the information seems to be one or two years out of date?

A: Here comes the excuse. As alluded to earlier, we are actually only a couple of guys running StudentsReview, only one of which is an actual developer. We try to keep the data up to date, but with a database of 4,500 institutions and an uncountable number of subprograms/majors/etc, which are changing all of the time, we are bound to miss some. Our latest update should have brought most tuitions, majors, contact information, etc. up to date with the 2002-2003 school year, but it is highly probable that some were missed. If you see something that looks wrong, please don't hesitate to email sradmin@studentsreview.com, and of course visit the school's site directly through the provided link.

Q: Is StudentsReview a complete one stop solution my college search?

A: Haha, Well, we'd like to say "yes", but the truth is, no single site is going to be a complete or perfect source of information. One should make a decision pon where to spend four years (and $100,000) based on only one source of information. Many other ranking systems or data-houses (Princeton Review, US News, Petersons, Barrons, etc.) have other insightful information that we do not, and when StudentsReview used with other sources, you can begin to flesh out what a school is really like, and (hopefully) how well you (or your child) will be able to perform there.

Q: My name is Professor [X], and I am going to sue you over the professor reviews!

A: Thank you for visiting StudentsReview, and if you any comments or concerns, please feel free to email us.

If you are still considering legal action, please be advised that StudentsReview is protected federally by the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. §§230(c), which grants absolute immunity all “providers” and “users” of any “interactive computer service” “from liability for information that originates with third parties” (1). The information StudentsReview posts is an exercise of 1st amendment civil rights, and is constitutionally protected opinion.
See Prior Precedent, set by California Superior Court: Curzon-Brown v.s. TeacherReviews.com (Ryan Lathouwers), &
Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327, 328, 331-34 (4th Cir. 1997), aff’g 958 F. Supp. 1124, 1134-35 (E.D.Va. 1997), both held absolute immunity.
Furthermore, most states posess Anti-SLAPP ("Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation") statutes to strike down (early) lawsuits intended to abridge free speech, usually under the cover of "defamation", "invasion of privacy", and "nuisance", among others. (How do you know its a SLAPP?).

We thank you for using StudentsReview, and if you are still concerned about the content of select teacher reviews, please contact us, and we will review them for falsification, though it is against our policies to alter the content, wording, or any other information in the review itself.