All SmarterSelect Reviews
1-25 of 232 Reviews
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Jessica
Verified reviewer
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2018
From scholarship application to chapter evaluation
As our chapter success plan process relies heavily on administrator access, multi-end user access, and evaluator access, SmarterSelect has been a perfect solution for use for this project.
PROSWe have used the system for years as part of our scholarship and fellowship application process. This past year, we introduced a new chapter planning and evaluation tool for our organization. We decided to put this tool in SmarterSelect because of the ease of use by both the administrator and the end-user. The ability to have the end-user save work and come back has been invaluable. Since this is an evaluation tool, the ability to give multiple individuals evaluator access was a key factor in our decision to put this process in SmarterSelect.
CONSThe form builder fuction can be confusing at times.
Laura
Verified reviewer
Used more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2017
Switched from emailed applications to SmarterSelect - saved us a ton of time!
Soooo streamlined! I love that I can customize the application to meet my needs. Students say it's a much better process on their end, and I get better results because the parameters of the app require them to upload certain file types, require answers to some questions, and flag if they miss any questions. A huge time saver on the administrative time for me - and there are reports I can pull throughout the application period to keep my finger on the pulse of things. Plus, my evaluators can quickly review the apps and rank them without needing to open and download lots of files - and again, easy to pull reports. Huge timesaver and brings us into the 21st century!
CONSThe learning curve is there - it takes a while to get the knack of things. And setting up the application and revising it to be exactly what you want can be cumbersome. There's not a great way to test the application other than creating "fake" applications to ensure everything works smoothly. That said - it works very well for our needs and allows me to process more apps in less time with much less frustration for both me and our candidates!
Jenny
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
3
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed November 2018
Would like more user-friendly and customization!
I like that it meets the basic needs of our program in terms of letting students apply to our program.
CONSThe user interface feels very slow and clunky. It's not super intuitive. For example, when creating an application form, I assume I can just edit by clicking on what I see, but in order to actually edit a section, I have to click through the sections on the right hand side first, and that doesn't seem very intuitive. I also wish we could create our own statuses that would allow us to do specific autoscoring. For example, one of the things we need to do is make sure that the applicants have submitted the correct attachments. I wish we could check for that in SmarterSelect continuously throughout the application period and not just at the end.
Vendor Response
Hi Jenny, Many thanks for your review! We appreciate your feedback on our user interface as we continuous work to improve it. Regarding your own statuses, create them with a multiple choice question with the Admin question class so that only you can see them. Regards, Robert
Replied November 2018
Olivia
Verified reviewer
11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2017
Beyond excellent, especially for a beginner!
SmarterSelect is so easy to use. If I can't figure something out by simply trying different things, I can quickly and easily find helpful tutorials in the library. If something is so hard that I still can't figure it out-- which I don't recall ever happening-- customer support is super fast and responsive when i put a ticket it.
CONSI wish I could archive deleted programs so that I don't have to sort through them, without losing the applications completely. I would just like to move the ones I know I will probably never need again out of the "disabled" section and only keep the ones from the past year or two in that section.
Anonymous
51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2018
Smarter Select and Competition Submissions
Smarter Select saves time for me in my work day. I like how I can easily pull a report and add evaluators. I love your "Support" tab on Smarter Select.
PROSI really love how user friendly this is for Evaluators
CONSThere are a bunch of tabs on the side of the program that I don't know how to use. For Example... it takes me a ton of time to try and find how I change the abstract
Vendor Response
Hi, Many thanks for your review! Please reach out to our Support team and they will be happy to schedule a training session for the tabs on the side of the program. Regards, Robert
Replied November 2018
Chris
Verified reviewer
Mental Health Care, 51-200 employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed April 2019
SmarterSelect
Having applicants that can apply online and have all of their information readily available makes our lives so much easier.
PROSIt is very easy to learn even if you are not the most tech savvy individual. Being given the option of customizing applications is a great way to be able to get straight to the information that you are looking for in applicants. No more worries about manually inputting data for hours!
CONSWhen switching from one application to another, I sometimes find that it takes longer than it should. Other than this, I am completely satisfied with SmarterSelect.
Darla
Verified reviewer
Higher Education, 2-10 employees
Used monthly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2020
Very easy to customize and great customer support!
I am very pleased with SmarterSelect. It saves us time by having the matching questionnaire that allows for scholarship matching.
PROSI liked the free trial to set up unique programs with the help of customer support. All free set up work was saved and usable after purchasing the product. It is very easy to customize the unique programs and link to a common application. It allows for scholarship matching.
CONSI'd like it if unique program dates such as deadline dates could be synced with common application deadline dates so I would not have to edit all of the uniques annually.
Reason for choosing SmarterSelect
More inexpensive.
Angela
Verified reviewer
Philanthropy
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2017
One of the best decisions our Scholarship Program ever made!
Efficient, can be accessed from anywhere. The SmarterSelect online platform has made the work of scholarships far less cumbersome. I am able to streamline the process and app rules and matching has enhanced our ability to assist applicants and make their process easier.
CONSI honestly cannot think of anything I don't like other than as features have been added I need more time to catch up. However, they offer frequent online training and that helps a great deal. I hear from IPAD users that on occasion scoring doesn't show up later.
Sara
Verified reviewer
Education Management
Used more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2017
User friendly platform that streamlines application management
It's a much easier to manage our EMERGE application process. It's easy for students to use and for staff to use.
PROSIt's a professional, more streamlined way of managing applications, especially the review of applications.
CONSIt can be difficult to know about all of the features. For example, on Google Forms, I can easily customize questions to take people to a different page based on a response. I don't know how to do that in Smarterselect, but I'm sure there's a way.
Vendor Response
Hi Sara, Thanks for your review! I'll have our Support reach out to you with info on how to use App Rules. Thanks, Robert
Replied November 2017
Anonymous
Used daily for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed November 2017
We have used this program to evaluate our chapters and enable them to define a year-long plan.
I like the logic components the most. I makes it easier to ask in depth questions. The calculation options allow us to ask questions that we normally would not receive an answer for.
CONSI wish there was a way to send the feedback from evaluators back to the original "applicants". I wish we could pull the reports with more than 20 questions.
Jessica
Mining & Metals, 5,001-10,000 employees
Used monthly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed September 2022
Great software with some room for minor improvements
Overall the experience has been a positive one. Customer Service is always helpful and responsive. I wish that it were possible to speak with CS over the phone sometimes though, because instant messaging or email isn't always the fastest. I enjoy the software and it's capabilities. We also use the software for purposes outside of scholarship and it's been a great asset there as well.
PROSThere are a lot of great things about this software. I enjoy the ability to customize the site easily, even for those without any sort of web-design knowledge. Being able to send reminders from within the platform is a great time-saver and helpful. The applicants who've used it seem to be able to operate it without much trouble, including from mobile devices. The reports feature is critical for us to track and make notes outside of the platform via Excel. Being able to amend the applicants records and attachments is also simple and helpful when they're running into issues or user errors.
CONSThe reminder feature for scholarship applicants could be clearer. In my experience, in order to send reminders to those on "incomplete" statuses and "pending" statues you have to go to two separate parts of the site. It's not the most clear. There's almost too many features. I wish there was a bit more simplicity. It can be very time-consuming. When our reviewers (independent scholarship committee) go into do their part, we've found that the software sometimes will not hold their ratings even though they are saving as they go. This results in a 0 being given in certain categories which was really mess up the metrics. This also requires additional time being spent reviewing the scores to catch any software errors.
Benjamin
Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees
Used weekly for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed September 2022
Great Grants Management Program, But Not Necessarily for Beginners.
We are able to begin and end our grants management procedures within the same system. This has been a huge time and cost saver for our foundation. The board members and grants committee members have been more than pleased with the ease of reviewing and evaluating submitted applications.
PROSThe applications are easily customizable, with question options for every type of inquiry (i.e., statistics, essays, contact). The forms settings, auto calculate, and rules are very useful, but take a bit of technical proclivity to get a good hold on. However, SmarterSelect provides excellent customer service and also has a vast library of tutorial videos. The Evaluator options are also extremely useful, especially when one has a board of 20+ and needs to keep reviews and scores organized in one location. While the export features need a bit of an upgrade, this software has made streamlined our grants management procedures.
CONSThe major qualm I have with SmarterSelect is the export options. Neither export to a pleasing, reader-friendly format. Most of our board members review online, which is ideal, but for those that prefer a printed binder, the export design ends up costing me more time than it should.
Reason for choosing SmarterSelect
Pricing, user friendly, had most of the features we needed specifically for our procedures.
Reasons for switching to SmarterSelect
The software was dissolved by the owner company.
Lori
Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2020
Helps you work more effectively and efficiently
First, I have to say the service of SmarterSelect is wonderful. From day one they have responded quickly, solved our issue or educated us on how to do something. Second, we use SmarterSelect for much more than scholarships. We have used it for registrations, employee grant requests, grant completion reports, finding alumni (forms), student thank you letter follow-up and more. Finally, we are able to choose the level of program we need based on the price that works best for our size organization. In my eyes, SmarterSelect and the people behind will help you work more effectively and efficiently which we all need since we have less people who need to do more.
CONSIt is a bit difficult to figure out how the app rules and autoscores affect the outcome. However, this is also where SmarterSelect shines. I am certain all similar applications have this, but SmarterSelect's customer service taught and helped me through any and all issues I had. Once you have a completed project, you can easily set up another or copy that one and adjust it.
Joanne
Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed August 2016
Get Bang for Your Buck
We were looking for a cost effective online software package that would be easy for our users (students applying), evaluators and administrators. This software provides what we were looking for. Once the product was introduced, we have been tweeking it to fit our needs and make it a better user experience for both those applying and those reviewing the applications. SmarterSelect has been very responsive to our needs and worked with us to find solutions to most of our requests for assistance.
PROSEase of use and fantastic customer support.
CONSSome places not flexible enough to provide what we need; and the fact that you cannot get aggregate reporting.
Vendor Response
Hi Joanne, Thanks for your feedback! Stay tuned for aggregate reporting coming soon.
Replied September 2016
Jenny
Fund-Raising, 10,000+ employees
Used daily for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed September 2022
So Easy to Use and Implement
Absolutely incredible and easy to utilize once you get your bearings on how the system works. The support is excellent. They take the time to show and explain everything to you. They follow up extremely fast so get immediate help.
PROSI can customize the whole system to what I need it to do in order to fit Mt needs. So simple to add additional information when needed. So easy for my applicants, evaluators and myself to use. Love I can pull reports when I want.
CONSNothing I have found yet. Everything has worked great for us. We found some things like we need to have a person view each application since the applicant could download anything and shows it is complete when they are missing information still.
Nancy
Non-Profit Organization Management, 501-1,000 employees
Used weekly for less than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed August 2016
Online scholarships made easy
SmarterSelect started hosting our online scholarship last year. I admit that I was apprehensive. I had been with our previous host for nearly 12 years (they changed their business model so I was left looking for a new site at the last minute). SmarterSelect's staff guided me through set up and learning their new system. Customer service is very good. I always get a quick response, and it is easy to set up a phone or web conference with the staff. And they are very good about helping you think through the logic of your questions and the question formats that will get you the information you want. I'm very impressed and very glad our program signed on with SmarterSelect.
PROSVery easy to use. Once you understand the logic of the software, it is very easy to set up your own application. I found the evaluation process easy to understand and use as well.
CONSI wish there were a guide to explain the hierarchy of the application design. I stumble around creating and deleting pages, until I can figure out what I want to do. If there were a prompt you could click on that explained this easily, I would appreciate it. I don't create a new scholarship application so frequently that I can keep this memorized.
Nancy
Education Management, 51-200 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed November 2018
Proctor
Easy for proctors and student to be able to create an accounts have an understanding how to use the program.
CONSI do not like that every time we are searching for an applicant it takes awhile. An example if you have 300 or more it could take 2 or more minutes to find the the applicant.
Vendor Response
Hi Nancy, Thanks for your review! Please use the Search box on the Applicants page to quickly find the applicant. Also, you can use a Report. In 2019, we'll be updating the tables for even faster responses. Stay tuned for updates! Regards, Robert
Replied November 2018
Sue
Aviation & Aerospace, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed November 2018
5 Years with Smarter Select
I feel that the tasks of managing the applicant files and the voting process have become much more streamlined since we started using SmarterSelect.
PROSBefore we found SmarterSelect we were mailing out paper applications and keeping hard copy files of all applicants. SmarterSelect made the whole application process so much easier.
CONSThere are times when it would be nice to actually call for technical help but for the most part they are very good about responding quickly.
Kimberly
Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
3
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed November 2017
It is a good product and meets our needs.
It allows us to keep our applications (scholarship & grants) uniform and easy to share electronically.
PROSI like that it can be customizable. It can have as many questions you want. It is versatile enough that we can use it for both our scholarship and our grant applications. It is easy to have the option for attachments.
CONSI don't like that you cannot pick up a phone and call someone. A phone call has to be scheduled via email. Any issues have to be dealt with via email/chat. Sometimes it is a lot quicker/easier to explain a problem by talking rather than writing. I wish there could be a way to create a chart for applicants to complete on questions such as activities or work history over the years. Right now you have to ask a the same question for each time frame. It gets a bit redundant.
Meg
Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed September 2022
NCCF Review
Good! Program is solid, and when I'm confused your customer support is always really responsive and helpful.
PROSCustomizable, has recommender feature so recs can come through the same system (which is missing from competitors), and easy to export information
CONSUI isn't always clear, so I spend a lot of time playing customer support rep with applicants.
Gabby
Hospital & Health Care, 11-50 employees
Used weekly for less than 12 months
OVERALL RATING:
5
EASE OF USE
5
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
FUNCTIONALITY
5
Reviewed September 2020
SmarterSelect is a great tool to utilitize with any company!
Overall we love using this software. It has made it so easy for us to send out surveys and applications to our nurses.
PROSSmarterSelect made it easy for us to make applications for different volunteer groups that we have. It is so easy to put the information into SmarterSelect and create applications and surveys, and send those out to our nurses.
CONSI thought about this question for a while and truly cannot think of anything that I would say negatively about this program. We haven’t run into any issues using this software. It is easy to use and very functional.
Victoria
Education Management, 201-500 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
3
VALUE FOR MONEY
3
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
4
FUNCTIONALITY
3
Reviewed November 2018
Submitting a help request
Generally the product works fairly smoothly. I wish there was an easier way to find a student than clicking on applicants and ALL applicants have to appear before I can search for the one applicant I need. If there are many applicants, the process takes several minutes.
PROSI did receive an answer fairly quickly. I don't know why I can't get to the next page of this review.
CONSIt was difficult to find the help feature
Ashley
Non-Profit Organization Management, 2-10 employees
Used weekly for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed December 2018
Smarter Select Review
We are using Smarter Select for Scholarship Applications. It is a great system for this which stores all the applications and information for us until we are ready to process them. We have also branched out a little more this last year to use this software to collect the Scholarship Acceptance Forms, too. Very easy to print them (when necessary) and collect all the information we need to process the scholarship checks!
PROSThe ease of copying a program to use again next year (with a few date changes, etc.) This is a great benefit and saves the user a lot of time!
CONSSometimes it is difficult to find exactly where to change the wording on a section or page. I have to fumble through this every time but I eventually find the right section to click on to change the information.
Jen
Non-Profit Organization Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
4
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed November 2018
SmarterSelect has been a good solution for us!
The customer service has been top-notch! My questions are always answers promptly and thoroughly. If an answer isn't known immediately, the team works to recreate my issue and figure out a solution.
CONSSometimes the form building is not the most intuitive - I would love to see that be a little more user friendly.
Jennifer
Education Management, 11-50 employees
Used daily for more than 2 years
OVERALL RATING:
4
EASE OF USE
4
VALUE FOR MONEY
5
CUSTOMER SUPPORT
5
FUNCTIONALITY
4
Reviewed June 2016
Extensive use has been a success for our Society's programs
I have had a great experience going on 6 years now with Smarter Select. Someone is always available to answer my questions or help me with a problem. They would walk me through step by step if I needed it.
PROSI like that I can build my own applications or start with an application someone else has already added to the library.
CONSIf only they would manage my programs for me!