Who are the specialist teams and roles on The Student Room?

There are a number of specialist teams on The Student Room, who work to support our student community. 

If someone is a member of one of these teams, it means they have expertise in a particular area. 

You'll be able to see if someone is part of a specialist team by looking at their username (which shows up above their post).

Here's an example of how that looks on The Student Room app. In this case, the member is an official rep.

And here's an example of how it looks if you're viewing The Student Room on a laptop. In this instance, the user is a forum helper in the universities section of the site.

• The Student Room's volunteer team
• Expert advisors from the community
• Forum helpers
• Official representatives
• The Student Room community staff
• The Student Room group staff

Volunteer team

The Student Room has a dedicated team of volunteers who give up their time to help ensure the community is getting the best support possible.

These volunteers cover discussions on studying, university, careers and life; to share their expertise, give peer-to-peer support, help everyone get an answer to their questions and keep the forums tidy and safe.

The Student Room's volunteers must be at least 16 years old. They have an Enhanced DBS check before they join the team (and every three years after that). They also receive safeguarding training. You can find out more about our volunteer programme here. 

Volunteer section leaders

All the forums on The Student Room are divided into sections (such as universities, study help and entertainment). Each section has at least one volunteer section leader.

These section leaders are members of the volunteer team who have got lots of experience in supporting The Student Room's community.

They work with The Student Room's community staff to make plans for activities in the forum, look after the volunteer teams, and welcome new volunteer recruits to the team. They also support forum helpers in their community-based roles.

Clearing and applications advisors

This group includes forum helpers and volunteers who are trained by Ucas each year.

They find out the latest information so that, when exam results are published and university place are confirmed, they can help people with individual advice. This team makes sure that everyone who comes to The Student Room with a question on results day gets the help they need.

Personal statement reviewers

This is a team of community members and volunteers who review students' personal statements. They provide feedback to help applicants improve their personal statement. Find out more about personal statement reviews here. 

Forum helpers are members of the The Student Room community, who provide help and support in their favourite forums.

They also help to keep those forums tidy and easy to use, and help make sure newbies get answers to their questions. 

Official representatives (often known as 'official reps') are experts from outside The Student Room who join our community to share advice and support. They will often be from a university, a charity, an exam board or a support organisation.

The people who post from these accounts work for those organisations, and can give authoritative answers to The Student Room's community. Usually (but not always) the representative is part of a paid sponsorship programme with The Student Room.

The community staff are employees of The Student Room Group. They work to ensure the students who come to our site are getting the very best from The Student Room and that they are able to enjoy the site in a friendly, safe atmosphere.

They look after things like moderation, safeguarding, forum-specific projects and the volunteer teams. If you have a question for the community staff, you can start a private conversation with them here. 

Group staff are also employees of The Student Room Group. They work across all kinds of roles on The Student Room and The Uni Guide, so this will cover people working in departments such as product development, design, sales, finance and marketing.

They are less directly involved with the forum conversations on The Student Room, but you might still see them joining in with discussions.

Sometimes that might just be for a chat, or to support the community (eg the development team helping solve problems, or the design team asking for feedback on some new ideas). 

All specialist teams on The Student Room are subject to our terms and conditions, and community guidelines.

If you see any posts, threads or PMs from any member of these groups which you believe to be against the community guidelines, please use the report button as normal.