Top Hat vs eSMS Student
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Top Hat
Enhance your learning experience with interactive resources, in-class participation tools, and dynamic digital textbooks. Engage with professors and peers, and test your knowledge with quizzes and polls to improve comprehension and retention.
- Follow lecture slides on your device
- In-class response system
- In-app discussions with peers and professors
- Dynamic, interactive digital textbooks
- Take polls and quizzes
- Access graded and non-graded homework
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Top Hat is the perfect companion app to our comprehensive assessment platform that helps you learn better before, during and after class. Top Hat makes learning fun and engaging (seriously!) and sets you up for success, helping you connect with your professors, your peers and the content you’re learning in and out of the classroom. Here’s what Top Hat offers you: Compelling resources, delivered on your smartphone or laptop: • Follow your prof’s lecture slides on your own device • Contribute in class with an easy-to-use response system that’s always with you • Participate with your profs and peers using in-app discussions Content tailored to your course: • Experience dynamic, interactive textbooks loaded up with images, videos, audio clips and more • Read your digital materials from anywhere and keep them forever Quizzes, tests and polls that improve learning comprehension: • Challenge yourself by taking polls and quizzes on your own devices • Improve your knowledge retention with interactive assessment elements • Check for gaps in your understanding with graded and non-graded homework and short quizzes Thanks for using Top Hat. As you experience the app, we’d love to get your feedback: support@tophat.com or follow us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook @TopHat
eSMS Student
This app allows University of Arizona students to manage academic and career appointments, reserve study rooms, and view college events. It integrates with learning management systems and requires prior web portal login.
- Book and manage advising appointments
- Schedule career coaching sessions
- Reserve collaborative team rooms
- View and RSVP to college events
- Connect with D2L and Blackboard
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eSMS/Student is the mobile form factor implementation of the student-centric interface of the Eller Student Management System, or eSMS. Please note: to use this app, students must be currently enrolled at the University of Arizona, and have logged into the web portal for eSMS at least once to validate their account. eSMS/Student will allow the user to do any/all of the following activities: book, reschedule or cancel an advising appointment with their designated advisor; book, reschedule or cancel a career coaching/professional development appointment with their major-affiliated career coach; reserve one of the five collaborative team rooms in the Professional Development Center for their group; review upcoming Eller College Events and RSVP to attend any that are of interest; connect with D2L and Blackboard. In order to use the Quick Advising check-in feature, eSMS/Student makes use of Location Background mode. When enabled, please be aware that continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Top Hat at 4.6 against eSMS Student's 1.8. Top Hat also leads on ratings volume (23K vs 16) and update cadence (fortnightly vs every 2 months). eSMS Student's advantage is review sentiment (50% vs 14%) and iOS requirement (14.2 vs 17.0). On price, ads, 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.
Top Hat holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 1.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Top Hat has 23K ratings behind it against 16, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 14% of Top Hat's written reviews are positive against 50% of eSMS Student's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Top Hat ships an update fortnightly, eSMS Student every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 26, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Top Hat | eSMS Student |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (23K ratings) — better | 1.8 (16 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 14.4% of reviews | 50.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 23K — better | 16 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #146 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 14.2 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 162 MB | 161 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Top Hat Monocle | University of Arizona |
Customer experience
Top Hat
eSMS Student
Bugs and requests
Top Hat
Reported bugs
3 issues- Answers not registering correctly
- Slides not loading properly on mobile devices
- Inconsistent performance across platforms
Requested features
3 requests- Add page numbers and search functionality to ebooks
- Improve syncing between mobile and web versions
- Allow more flexible location settings for attendance
eSMS Student
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Top Hat
No in-app purchases
eSMS Student
No in-app purchases
