InitialView vs CourseGrab
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.
CourseGrab
This app helps students at a specific university get into full courses. It sends instant notifications when a spot opens up, allowing users to quickly access the enrollment system and secure their place.
- Search courses by name or code
- Track unlimited courses
- Instant spot opening notifications
- Direct link to Student Center
- Open source project
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Trying to get into a class at Cornell that’s already full? CourseGrab is here to help! CourseGrab enhances the student enrollment experience by notifying students of available spots in courses they wish to enroll in. CourseGrab currently caters to Cornell University’s class roster. The key features of the application include: - Search for any course name or course code for easy tracking - Track an unlimited number of courses - Receive immediate push notifications when an empty spot opens up - Navigate to Student Center to grab your spot straight from CourseGrab CourseGrab is an app from Cornell AppDev, an open source app development project team at Cornell University. Check us out at www.cornellappdev.com! Let us know what you think of CourseGrab by sending feedback at team@cornellappdev.com
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: InitialView at 100% against CourseGrab's 25%. InitialView also leads on update cadence (monthly vs every 6 months) and device support (3 vs 1). CourseGrab's advantage is rating (3.6 vs 3.2) and monetization model (free vs ad-supported). 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.
CourseGrab holds the better App Store score, 3.6 against 3.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 11 and 17 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 100% of InitialView's written reviews are positive against 25% of CourseGrab's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
InitialView ships an update monthly, CourseGrab every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on October 9, 2026 and September 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | InitialView | CourseGrab |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.2 (11 ratings) | 3.6 (17 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 25.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 11 | 17 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 6 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 16.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Terry Crawford | Walker White |
Customer experience
InitialView
CourseGrab
In-app purchases
InitialView
No in-app purchases
CourseGrab
No in-app purchases
