MyEdu

MyEdu is a national academic website with information on all 4-year, 2-year, public and private colleges across the U.S. MyEdu targets current and prospective college students, with additional services available for parents, professors, and advisors. The company states that its goals are to help students save money and graduate on time. Formerly Pick-A-Prof, the company officially transitioned to MyEdu in the summer of 2009.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, MyEdu offers profile information on all colleges and universities across the United States and provides degree and course information at 369 institutions as of October 2009. The site’s features include professor reviews, grade distributions, university course schedules, degree plans, a management system, and a network for students, parents, advisors and professors to communicate about student decisions. The specific features available at each school are detailed in the Campus Directory.

History

When it began as Pick-A-Prof in 2000, the website was only available to students at Texas A&M and the University of Texas. Founders John Cunningham, Chris Chilek, and Karen Holst are graduates of the two universities.

The website’s initial services provided information about professors, including grading patterns and student reviews. Over the years, the site grew to reach over 200 schools across the nation, with about 1.5 million users. Its features expanded, adding schedule planners and online textbook exchanges.

Development for the new website began in 2008. It made its official transition from Pick-A-Prof to MyEdu in the summer of 2009. In addition to the original founders of Pick-A-Prof, MyEdu has a new executive team, board of directors, and advisory board (See More Info). The new site is meant to host more tools for planning and degree development. As listed on their website, the company’s philosophy is to “provide the essential tools, information and support needed to gain greater visibility and control over the education process.”

Features

Explore
The Explore section has tools for researching schools, courses, careers and professors. Users may select favorite colleges and use comparison charts to analyze differences in criteria such as size, location, acceptance rate, and test scores. A student can also select favorite careers and compare the salary, current employment rate, and the corresponding degrees that are available at their favorite schools.

Plan
The Plan section has tools for comparing and tracking degree requirements. All the information comes directly from the respective school’s course catalog. The Degree Analyzer compares and contrasts potential degree options, while the Degree Planner details all the courses required, and their corresponding workloads. Students are also given a Graduation Roadmap that provides a snapshot of their overall progress.

Schedule
Students are given a customizable calendar to organize classes and activities. This portion of the site offers the same services that Pick-A-Prof once did, and combines them with the new degree planning features. The Schedule Planner lists the time, professor, and location for all available class sections at each school, as provided by school’s official course schedule. Information such as course schedules are verified 70 times a semester, both automatically by computers and manually by copy editors to maintain accuracy.

Grade Histories
MyEdu posts graphs displaying historical grade distributions for professors. This data is displayed by showing the number of A’s, B’s, C’s, D’s and F’s given by each professor, as well as specific grading patterns for each class they teach. The average class size from these classes is also listed, along with the average withdrawal rate.

Professor Reviews
This feature allows former students to post both positive and negative professor reviews. MyEdu reviews the posts to verify credibility and usefulness before they are posted on the website.

Manage
MyEdu has an Academic Dashboard; a way to visualize their long-term college plans and track their progress. Students can see their average workload, what percentage of their degree has been completed, and how their GPA has changed over time.

Network
The network is a communication platform intended to encourage students to get others (parents, professors, advisors and friends) to help with their degree plans and participate in their path to graduation.

Cost

There are three price brackets for MyEdu memberships. The Explore feature of the site is available free of charge. In addition, MyEdu is free for professors and advisors to use. The fee for Pick-A-Prof was $10 at some schools. For $10 students get the MyEdu Schedule and Network options. The full site is available for $20 per year. While some students disagree with the price, other students find the cost to access MyEdu worth the money.

Criticisms

Price Increase
When the website was still Pick-A-Prof, its features were free to users at certain schools. For MyEdu, all users must now pay equally. This additional cost has angered some students who feel cheated by having to pay for services that they used to access for free.

Professors and Advisors
Some argue that the professor criticisms that students write are often unjust, as the more positive reviews tend to be written about professors with particular personalities, light workloads, and high grades.
The website could trouble advisors, as students may use the site’s features in lieu of seeking advising help.

Data Accuracy
Some people question the accuracy of the data posted on the site.

See also

- MyEdu - http://www.myedu.com/
- Rate My Professors - http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/
- Inkampus - http://www.inkampus.com/
- College Board - http://www.collegeboard.com/
- Blackboard - http://www.blackboard.com/
- The Princeton Review - http://www.princetonreview.com/
- GradeABase - http://www.gradeabase.com/

External links

- MyEdu Website - www.MyEdu.com