Illini Tower, one of the University’s Private Certified Housing options, provided Resident Advisers $20 bonuses for each five-star review from their student residents.

During one dinner and in the Illini Tower group chat, several RAs asked students to write positive reviews with the RA’s name attached. 

The RAs also told students they would host a pizza party after receiving their paychecks.

“I feel like all the five-star reviews are definitely dishonest,” one student on the 10th floor said. “These people aren’t (writing) because of the quality of the place — they’re getting incentives to leave good reviews.”

However, a student on the sixth floor said there was little wrong with writing reviews for RAs.

“If the RAs were harassing me, like ‘write this essay,’ ‘write this review,’ then that would be a problem,” the sixth floor student said. “(But if) we do write the review and it benefits us as well, there’s really no harm there.”

Thus far, the student said their experiences at Illini Tower had been largely positive.

“(My review) probably would have been genuine mainly because I like my RA. He’s pretty chill,” a student living on the sixth floor said. “Out of the times I’ve met him, it’s been nothing but good times.”

Another student on the 10th floor was indifferent to the bonuses.

“I had no feelings for it, so I just wrote the review,” the student said. “I personally did like living here, so I wasn’t lying in my review, I just added (the RAs’) names.”

Residents also tried to have fun writing the reviews since management probably would not look at them, according to the student.

One five-star review thanked Chloe, one of the RAs, for donating a kidney and saving their life when they needed a kidney transplant.

Another five-star review expressed gratitude toward Logan for performing LASIK surgery on them in the study room after they mentioned how costly glasses were.

“Some of the reviews are kind of far-fetched,” the student said.

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