Unigo

Unigo is a new website, launched in September of 2008, that was created by 26 year old entrepreneur, Jordan Goldman who has written a series of 100% student written college guidebooks. Unigo is the place to go on the web to bypass what a school’s marketing department wants you to know about the school and find out what the students have to say about the school.

From Unigo-

For years, prospective college students have had to rely solely on costly print guidebooks for
their research. These books offer limited information, are typically written by marketing
professionals, have few photos, no videos, and no interactivity. Launched in September 2008,
the free website Unigo.com is quickly replacing these outmoded resources, with tens of
thousands of interactive reviews of America’s top colleges by the real experts – the students
who attend them.
These reviews were described by The New York Times Magazine as “…so evocative they make
the one-page U.S. News summaries read like junk mail … they are vivid in a way no guidebook
can match,” and The Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg called Unigo “…a college information
resource built for the age of YouTube and Facebook.”
Pre-launch, Unigo’s team of 19 editors spent months researching America’s top 250 colleges,
and networking with tens of thousands of students to give them the opportunity to tell their
stories. They made sure to contact a diverse range of students within each university –
students from every class year, major, ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, sexual orientation,
etc.

After more than 30,000 candid and original reviews, videos, photos, documents and more
poured in, Unigo’s editors viewed and organized all of it, working with students on campus to
ensure accuracy and making all of it available at Unigo.com. At many featured colleges, close to
10% of the student body contributed content.

Since Unigo is a new site and currently only has full profiles of the top 250+ colleges and universities, it has a long way to go. I searched for 6 universities that my son is interested in and none of them are profiled on Unigo at this time. To do my research I finally went to my alma mater The University of South Florida.
Unigo has a very nice review of USF with pictures and videos as well as reviews by students. I was impressed that in the sidebar of the page there are quotes from students that are the “Best things about USF” and the “Worst things about USF”. The content is real and regularly added to by students. Unigo also has a forum section where students can talk with prospective students and answer some of their questions before they ever step on campus.

Unigo is free to join and is a worthwhile place for you and your high school junior or senior to start researching and planning for their college career.