Students log on to review VCU

Students at various colleges can rate universities, including VCU, on the special Web site called Studentsreview.com. They can rate schools in at least four categories: education quality, campus safety, faculty accessibility and university resources.

So how do students rate Virginia Commonwealth University? Since August 2001 nine students have issued grades for VCU in these four categories, then graded it as an A, B and C school.

This rating all began when Beracah Yankama, a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, created the Web site, to assist high school students in choosing the college that best matched their needs. Yankama, and others, rated their college experiences as unsatisfactory, so they wanted to be sure other students didn’t make the same mistake in deciding where they wanted to spend their college years.

“The piece of paper we had worked so hard for and spent so much money for was exactly that – a piece of paper, Yankama said. “We didn’t feel that we were given either the education or opportunities promised.”

The site, he said, was not set up to corrupt the image of any institution but to provide a set of metrics and personal experiences potential students could cross-reference in their search process. Students can write comments about their experiences at universities, and a VCU freshman posted June 24.

“Oh boy. Having just finished my freshman year at Virginia Commonwealth University, already I’ve been scrambling to transfer somewhere else. VCU is a joke on several levels.

“Let me start with the student body. I don’t think I’ve ever been more unhappy with a group of people than I was with these guys. They’re antisocial, petty, angry, freaky-looking and have major attitudes about everything.”

Of the nine postings, three are negative, two positive and the other four are not only neutral, but also offered advice to future VCU students. Bayinnha Hafiz, a junior who transferred from University of Maryland-Eastern Shore, disagreed with the student who wanted to transfer from VCU. Instead, she found her experiences at VCU to be positive.

“My adjustment from University of Maryland-Eastern Shore to VCU was pretty easy. I think the demand from classes is a little more difficult here than at UME,” she said. “But my professors have been very good at explaining things to me outside of class. I thought the comments on the Web site were a little harsh and inaccurate.”

Students visiting the Web site gave VCU a C+ concerning the social life on campus. Antoinette Wilkerson, a senior majoring in political science, rates the social life on campus as adequate, saying it has progressed since her first year.

“I think VCU has a lot more social clubs, intramural sports and other activities now than when I first came in 2001,” she said. “Social life on campus is what you make it. I have never met people like the negative ones one student described in his posting.”

Six VCU alumni took a survey on the Studentsreview Web site about their current job status. Fifty percent of those surveyed responded that they were satisfied with their jobs and believed their college experiences at VCU contributed to their career successes.

A message written by a 2004 alumnus expressed his love for VCU.

“I really feel like I got a quality education here and a good amount of experience with real people. I would recommend VCU as a university to come to,” he said.

Kamilla Lawson, a VCU alumna who graduated in 1999, found her education to be valuable to her jobs.

“VCU offered the hands-on experience I needed to become successful in my career. A lot of what I learned has been useful at my job at ESPN,” Lawson said.

Robyn Hicks, a VCU senior majoring in social work, used this Web site to research her college choices.

“The site was very useful,” Hicks said. “I didn’t read any negative postings about VCU at the time. I used the site more to filter out some of my bad choices.”

College and high school students may use the Web site, which Jay Matthews, a Washington Post staff writer, mentioned in his Nov. 26, 2002 article about college selections.

Yankama urges students to use the site, so survey counts can be more evenly and fairly distributed across universities.