Unsolicited Reviews

What is an unsolicited review?

An unsolicited review is a review that was not posted in response to another parent's query.  Most reviews on the BPN website are part of a Q&A discussion: one parent posts a question, other parents respond with advice and recommendations.  Unsolicited reviews can be posted directly to the profile page of the school or business. 

Unsolicited reviews that BPN accepts

  1. BPN accepts unsolicited reviews for schools and other child-related businesses and programs that have a profile page on the BPN website.  This includes schools, preschools, daycares, camps, classes, pediatricians, pregnancy and childbirth services, and other child-related and parenting-related local businesses and organizations. 
  2. All reviews must follow BPN's Policies for Advice & Reviews. For example, reviews must reflect a parent's first-hand experience with the school or business. 

Unsolicited reviews that BPN does not accept

BPN does not accept negative unsolicited reviews, such as criticisms of a business or school.  Negative reviews are accepted only in Parent Q&A in response to a question. See BPN's negative review policy for more information.

Why BPN doesn't accept unsolicited reviews for everything

For a time, BPN accepted "unsolicited" reviews similar to the way Yelp does, but we stopped doing it for everything except schools, childcare and other child-related businesses because 1) parents were posting reviews of businesses that had offered them a discount in exchange for a good BPN review, 2) parents were threatening local businesses with bad reviews on BPN, and 3) businesses were posting reviews of themselves and not disclosing their relationship to the business.

We think that the reviews on BPN have more value for parents because reviews *can't* be posted at any time, but rather are part of a parent-to-parent conversation. 

How can I post an unsolicited review?

Find the profile page of the school or business you want to review and click the green "Post a review" button.

To find a profile page, you can either use the Search BPN box at the top of every page, or navigate to their page using one of the browse lists in the main menu such as "Find a K-12 School."

On the profile page, look for the green "Post a review" button that follows the "Parent Q&A" section. If there are a lot of question in "Parent Q&A", you can click the link at the top that says "5 parent reviews" to jump to the Post a review button

What if I can't find their profile page?

  • Schools, preschools, daycares, camps, classes, teams, and other kids' groups: Contact BPN and we'll make a profile page for them.  Please give us basic information including their business name, city, and website if they have one. NOTE!  Daycares, preschools and all other programs for kids under 5 years old: we will need their license number and the owner's name in order to make a profile page.
  • Tutors, babysitters, and other private individuals who come to your home: BPN does not create profile pages for individuals for privacy reasons. However you can recommend a tutor or a housekeeper in Parent Q&A if someone asks a relevant question, and you can recommend a nanny or babysitter by posting to the Childcare listing.
  • Local businesses/organizations that serve parents or children will not have a profile page unless they are a community subscriber, or they have received numerous reviews on BPN in the past. You cannot post an unsolicited review if they do not have a profile page, although you can recommend them in Parent Q&A if someone asks a relevant question.
  • Other businesses that do not specifically target parents or kids: BPN does not accept unsolicited reviews for these, although you can recommend them in Parent Q&A if someone asks a relevant question.