The road to success might have a few bumps in it for students.

But RideTheBellCurve.com is trying to smooth out the road with the help of people who have been there.

Grant Goodwin, the company president, said the business gives students a tutoring session in their own home.

“The idea came from my own experience,” he said. “I had too many nights sitting there trying to figure out how to start a problem.”

The Kingston, Ontario, Canada based Web site began business in late October and uses graduate students from around North America to answer questions from undergraduate students.

Students can log on and ask for a solution in 42 subjects of study. For each solution the student pays $3.33.

The service is offered 24-hours a day and has 215 graduate students available from 60 North American universities.

The average response time for each question is two hours. But if questions are worded incorrectly, the time could take longer.

Goodwin said the responses to questions asked have been excellent.

“It is a tool for academic learning and graduate students can learn to communicate with each other,” he said. “It was built for students.”

By the end of December, Goodwin said the company hopes to have 500 graduate students employed with the company.

“We have had 8,000 visitors and roughly 2,000 problems have already been posted,” he said. “People are entering a two sentence question and getting three pages from a Harvard Ph.D.”

Each graduate student can log on to the system at times convenient to them and will receive 80 percent for each solution a student accepts.

But some are hesitant to accept the Web site’s ability to give accurate or even correct answers.

Tony Nunez, associate dean of the Graduate School, said he had never heard of the service.

“My initial reaction is it can be good or bad,” he said. “From the point of view of the undergraduate students, it might be easier for students to go directly to the source, their professors and teaching assistants.”

Some students said the idea of a tutoring Web site sounded interesting, but there are different ways of getting help without having to pay for an answer.

Child development sophomore Laura Pollock said she would rather ask someone else.

“A graduate student here might know and they might have taken the class before, I don’t think you should have to pay for it,” she said.

Aaron Dean said it would be something he really isn’t interested in.

“Assuming I had the money, I could easily just get off my butt and do the research myself and I would know it was right,” the theater sophomore said.