StudySoup requires that a student sign up for a plan with them to access any notes, and there is no feature for a one-time purchase. The chief element that compels students to post their notes is the pay, but while the site claims that elite notetakers can make $300-$500 per course, this may not be the typical case. In this format, freshman notetakers like Krefft are listed with their username, Tulane University, and a 4.0 GPA. StudySoup does not post the age of a notetaker, stating only their name and GPA, if provided, on the top corner of the page. вЂњHow can they be вЂeliteвЂ™ necessarily? A lot of students who were aces in high school donвЂ™t do particularly well at a competitive university.вЂќ вЂњIвЂ™m suspect about the recruiting of first-year students, of freshmen,вЂќ said Molly Travis, associate dean and head of the Tulane Honor Board. Some students believe high school success do not necessarily translate to success in a college environment. вЂњThey asked for my high school GPA when I applied since I obviously donвЂ™t have a college one yet,вЂќ freshman Danielle Krefft said. Some of the students StudySoup employs are freshmen who do not yet have a college GPA. Students are asked to include their GPA when applying to be a notetaker, but are not required to provide this information however, StudySoup does encourage students to indicate their GPA to be more marketable on the site. There is no minimum GPA to become a notetaker. Elite notetakers are selected by StudySoup and receive a base payment in addition to the regular commission.ДЄny student can apply to be an elite notetaker, begging the question: what makes these notetakers so elite?Д®lite notetakers must go through an interview and training before they can begin posting their notes and are required to post weekly notes and exam study guides, while regular notetakers simply post their notes whenever they like, and undergo no training. On StudySoup, any student can upload their notes and study guides as a regular notetaker and receive a commission for each sale. The goal, according to Kozinsky, is to even the playing field and to raise the bar in terms of study materials available to students.

For those missing class material, an alternative solution,В note-sharing sites,В raises a host of new questions.ДЄ new website called StudySoup pays students, whom they refer to as вЂњelite notetakersвЂќ to post their weekly notes and exam study guide and then makes these resources available for purchase.ДЄccording to Sieva Kozinsky, CEO and co-creator of StudySoup, the site was born when he, a good student but poor notetaker, discovered that his co-founder, Jeff Silverman, an excellent notetaker, could make upwards of $500 per exam by selling his notes and study guides. Similar notes exchange services like Omega Notes, Notesale and Nexus Notes have also in recent years surfaced to provide students with learning materials made by other students.Whether because of a missed lecture, zoning out in class or poorly taken notes, many students find themselves without adequate study materials.

Students buying notes pay for a subscripting ranging from $11 to $30 per month.ДЇunding was led by Canyon Creek Capital, 500 Startups, investors Jake Gibson and Leonard Lodish and others.

Elite Notetakers can make $400 to $500 per class posting notes about once a week, Kozinsky told TechCrunch, and StudySoup takes some 30 percent of the cut. Students like KozinskyвЂ™s biology classmate can apply to become Elite Notetakers on StudySoup to make money selling their class notes. While he had trouble listening and taking notes as the professor spoke fast, a classmate sitting by him managed to take color-coded, organized notes. 26-year-old CEO Sieva Kozinsky told TechCrunch his inspiration draws from his time taking a biology class in college. NOTES FOR SALE: San Francisco startup StudySoup has raised $1.7 million in seed funding for its notes and study guides marketplace.

Studysoup elite notetaker