The anonymous co-op rating

Web site created nearly six months ago by Northeastern students

is beginning to reveal some information that may aid students

searching for the perfect co-op job.

The site, www.coopratings.com, now has 640 registered users

and over 500 reviews, rating co-ops on a one to five scale for employment factors including pay rate, quality of learning experience

and the amount of responsibility

required for the job.

The creators of the site, junior business major Punit Shah and senior

business major Vipul Lakhi, said the idea came from what they saw as a disconnect between the job descriptions provided by some employers and the reality of the positions themselves.

Co-op Ratings has been acquiring

new reviews steadily since the site launched in July, and although

Shah and Lakhi said it's hard to narrow down specific jobs as being particularly good or bad, there are some trends emerging as more reviews come in.

"The most popular reviews are for the jobs that seem to be the most competitive," Shah said. "If you look at the comments, you can see that students are using this to see what they need to do to qualify for a position."

Further down the spectrum, several companies have received repeatedly poor ratings from students

anonymously claiming to have had bad experiences. Gray and Rice Public Relations has a cumulative average of 2.1 out of 5 stars based on three student reviews, all of which said they would not recommend the job to anyone else.

Although Shah and Lakhi acknowledge

that there is the possibility

to use the anonymity of the site immaturely, they said they haven't had any complaints from companies, students or faculty.

"The ratings have been primarily

good things or sincere bad things," Shah said.