InitialView vs BU Reserve
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.
BU Reserve
This application allows users to make reservations for various resources. It simplifies the booking process for available items and services.
- Resource reservation
- Booking system
- Simplified process
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BU Reservation App
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: InitialView at 100% against BU Reserve's 0%. InitialView also leads on ads (none vs shown). BU Reserve's advantage is rating (4.2 vs 3.2) and update cadence (weekly vs monthly). On price, ratings volume, in-app purchases and monetization model 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.
BU Reserve holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 3.2. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 11 and 10 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 100% of InitialView's written reviews are positive against 0% of BU Reserve's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
InitialView ships an update monthly, BU Reserve weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 7, 2026 and September 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | InitialView | BU Reserve |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.2 (11 ratings) | 4.2 (10 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 11 — better | 10 |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | Ad-supported |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 14.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 10 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Terry Crawford | Chase Lenhart |
Customer experience
InitialView
BU Reserve
In-app purchases
InitialView
No in-app purchases
BU Reserve
No in-app purchases
