InitialView vs BrownU
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
InitialView
This platform provides live, unscripted interviews for academic program admissions. It helps assess applicants' English ability and interpersonal skills for boarding schools, undergraduate, and graduate programs worldwide. The service offers admission officers assurance through its proprietary interview technology.
- Live, unscripted interviews
- English ability assessment
- Interpersonal skills evaluation
- Proprietary interview platform
- Global admissions support
- Admission officer assurance
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For InitialView Students and Schools' Admission Officers' Use. InitialView was founded in Beijing, China in 2009, and in a short time it has become a world leader in interview services, having provided interviews to thousands of applicants to top academic programs. We provide live, unscripted interviews which are then uploaded to our proprietary interview platform. Our proprietary platform allows viewers to, within seconds, determine the interviewee’s English ability and interpersonal skills. Our technology is currently patent-pending in both the U.S. and China. Our interviews have been a part of more than 40,000 applications reviewed by over 200 boarding school, undergraduate, and graduate programs. We have interviewed applicants in over 50 countries. We are able to provide admission officers a level of assurance about our interviews, processes and operations in China in a way that is unmatched by others in international education.
BrownU
Access essential campus information for the Brown University community. Stay updated on campus events, view dining menus, and find other useful resources on the go.
- Campus event listings
- Dining menu information
- On-the-go access
- Community resources
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The BrownU app has on-the-go information for the Brown University community including campus events, dining menus and more.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: BrownU at 4.4 against InitialView's 3.2. BrownU also leads on monetization model (free vs ad-supported). InitialView's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 75%) and update cadence (monthly vs every 4 months). On price, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
BrownU holds the better App Store score, 4.4 against 3.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 11 and 21 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 100% of InitialView's written reviews are positive against 75% of BrownU's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
InitialView ships an update monthly, BrownU every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 9, 2026 and October 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | InitialView | BrownU |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.2 (11 ratings) | 4.4 (21 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 75.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 11 | 21 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 4 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 42 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Terry Crawford | Brown University Computing & Information Services |
Customer experience
InitialView
BrownU
In-app purchases
InitialView
No in-app purchases
BrownU
No in-app purchases
