Kunal

Gems B School

Vasanth Nagar ,Bangalore
October 22, 2014 Rating
Continued.(2/2) Such are students with a terrible value system of morals & ethics and think they are right in their stand. No college will really care about and help such students even if they had to write a million negative reviews on the internet bad mouthing the institution, simply because of their unreasonable demands. 3. Imposters intending to Damage the Brand image: These are people with dubious agendas who pretend like they are students/Alumni of the institution and write negative reviews about them just to damage the institution's image in public and to negatively influence the institution's prospective students. For example: a. Other educational institutions indulging in unethical activities of bad mouthing another institution under the pressure of competition b. Could be any individual wanting to settle scores with the management/owners of the institution because of some incident from the past (we have had one such experience) etc................... You can be rest assured, Negative reviews will be one of these 3 kinds only, for a college. Now, I have some advice to share with students confused with how they must react to Negative/Mixed reviews while researching about a college: 1. Firstly, check if the college has good number of reviews online on multiple websites, where students are writing/enquiring about various aspects of the college. If many students have talked about the college on several sites on the internet, irrespective of whether it's positive or negative/Good or bad, IT IS A VERY GOOD SIGN. This will give you an understanding of how popular the college is, it has attracted the interest of how many students, across how many locations, Is it for real or fake, do they really exist in a campus or they don't, how experienced the college is and for how many years they have been admitting students and so on. For sure, a college having that many reviews and that kind of engagement with students on the internet, cannot really be that bad. On that contrary, a college which has been in existence for a while and has very few reviews, is sure to be a mediocre institution as they have not been able to attract students to even ask questions about them, leave alone reviews. Or all their students are 100% satisfied, which cannot possibly be true. Even the top 10 institutions in this country have negative reviews. Therefore, Negative reviews are an integral part of any functional customer centric Business, Since you cannot practically keep all of them happy all the time. 2. One needs to first understand the authenticity of a review before actually falling for it, especially when the decision concerns something as important as education. Certainly, it is very difficult for any student to understand which review is authentic and which is not. Is it the Kind 1, 2, or 3. Therefore, a student should never decide on a college purely on the impression built by reading reviews. Remember, the internet is an open source and anybody can write anything. Reviews should only be a content pool from which students should build on their set of questions/queries before talking to the counsellors, visiting the college and talking to some of their students/Alumni. One can never get a 360 degree understanding of a college only on the basis of reviews. Therefore, An effective Admission decision should involve reading reviews, creating a list of queries based on the reviews, visiting the college to see infrastructure, Checking on credentials/recognitions/affiliations and supporting documents, clarifying these queries with the college directly, talk to students/ Alumni to understand their experience and then Admission if convinced. Now that is the right way of going about it. Hope this helped Thanks Kunal Nehruji Executive Director GEMS B SCHOOL

Gems B School

Vasanth Nagar ,Bangalore
October 22, 2014 Rating
Hi Ashley, This one is going to be long, but trust me, worth reading. Will certainly help you. This is Kunal from GEMS B SCHOOL. Let me give you an Honest reply here to your question about Negative Reviews, Mixed Reviews and so on, from my experience of running a B School for almost 10 years now, specifically with respect to an educational institution. Negative reviews are primarily of 3 types as below: 1. Student who is genuinely unhappy and has every right to be: Well, these are reviews written by students who are genuinely unhappy with how institutions fail to attend & address issues, raised by students, in a timely fashion. For example: a. Study material not been given in time despite several requests b. AC not fixed in classroom despite several reminders c. Continuing to teach a heavy subject back to back for 4 hours, despite expressing difficulty in understanding d. Broken flush not fixed in the Hostel toilet despite several reminders etc........... These are reviews which students have every right to write about and such reviews will keep the institution also on their toes to not take the smallest of issues lightly. This is also in a way a feedback for the college and drives them to correct themselves immediately and not take it lightly in future. 2. Student with unreasonable expectations: This is a Negative review when a student with absolutely unreasonable expectations writes Negative about the institution just because the college is not paying heed to his unreasonable demands. For example: a. Student demanding for a refund 6 months after joining the course and after using all the services offered by the college, against the college's refund policy communicated to him on day 1 b. Student demanding for a placement in an MNC with 25k salary per month, when his calibre & Skills do not permit him to work even with a much smaller tier-3 company for 10k per month c. Student unhappy with the college because the invigilator is very strict in the examination hall and does not allow him to copy (Believe me it's true!!! I have come across a dozen of such jokers and one such fellow even wrote a negative review about us on the social media) d. Student disappointed because the college does not issue him the hall ticket and allow him to appear for the exams, because of his acute shortage of attendance etc.... (1/2) Continued..