Students can now rate their school

Gone are the days of college decisions based on 12:1 student ratios, geographic distribution percentages, and decadent descriptions about the offerings off-campus catering. No longer will students fall victim to descriptions about the success of a school’s chess club, only to realize after taking classes there that the chess club wasn’t exactly what reviews made it out to be. Beginning this summer, students will have a new way to research potential schools: ByStudents.com.

The soon-to-be website and guidebook are the student-written alternative to publications like The Princeton Review. Due in July, the website will be a compilation of student opinions collected from a survey asking students about their schools.

The survey asks students to give honest, intelligent and candid answers to questions concerning stereotypes, academics, student life, and overall characterizations of the student body. They encourage students to be creative, to swear if they deem it necessary, and to feel at liberty to disclose anything and everything they think might be of use to high school seniors considering attending their school in the future. Students are offered the choice of using their real name, but are encouraged give accurate information about their major, hometown, graduation year, and extracurricular activities.

“Understand, we think that guides like The Princeton Review have their own place, but the information they offer is from a very limited point of view, and they aren’t nearly thorough enough for what is one of the most important decisions of a high school student’s life,” explained Chris Haigy, editor of ByStudents. “We are devoted to producing a guide that’s entirely uncensored, that takes into account the viewpoints of every different kind of student, from the stereotypical to the anomalous.”

Unlike many college reviews—even those that claim to be written by students—Bystudents.com is 100% authentic. When asked what a weekend at Wesleyan was like, Todd Pasternak of New Jersey, a neuroscience major, wrote, “Here’s what it looks like on the weekend: students wake up late, laze around the dorm for awhile, do a bit of work, eat, then go to a performance, get hammered, make out with some weirdo, pass out, wake up, work hard all day Sunday ’cause you’re a dummy who can’t manage your weekend time correctly.” No corrections, no political correctness, just good, old-fashioned, college Solo-cup-style honesty.

Unfortunately, most of us can’t go back and re-make that life-altering decision that we sadly based on the supposed abundance of student publications, exhilarating nightlife, or bizarre sports groups that didn’t make it past budget cuts.

But, we can now rest assured that, thanks to our advice, future generations of college-bound seniors will have the opportunity to make far more informed decisions about whether or not everything at their new school is exactly what they want.