Rate my professor, a reliable source?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

Zakaqel

Membership Revoked
Removed
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Apr 12, 2008
Messages
159
Reaction score
0
Do you guys usually use rate my professor to determine which classes you will take? Did you find it reliable or is it usually useless? I’ve been using it for a while now and most of the things said on the site are pretty accurate.

Members don't see this ad.
 
Sometimes yes...sometimes no. Usually the former when all of the students hold a similar opinion.
 
ProTip: the greater the sample size, the better the picture.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
I use it. Just use your own judgment about the comments. Students who have blown a class tend to rant. Sometimes it's obvious that an instructor has put the only good rating there for her/himself (usually herself). I find it most helpful when there are several years' worth of comments under one professor. It gives a better idea of what to expect.

I don't advise using it to choose the "easiest" prof for a course. That's not a good way to go about getting the best learning experience.
 
Depends on how many times the professor was rated. I'd say any review of a professor with less than 15 reviews will not be reliable.

I've always used it and always will though.
 
Do you guys usually use rate my professor to determine which classes you will take? Did you find it reliable or is it usually useless? I've been using it for a while now and most of the things said on the site are pretty accurate.

Since I'm transferring to a 4-year, I'm browsing the page to look at the different professors. I take it with a grain of salt because my General Chemistry teacher only has three ratings, two of which say he is a horrible professor.

Behold:
A) That's a terrible teacher, don't ever take him, if someone take him, they will regret and so boring because his writing is so baddddddddddddddddddddddddddd.... :(

B)he's sooooooooo bad...don ever take him...

C)he is ok teacher. He is not that easy, but very fair. If u trying to learn and pass witha good grade take him.


I agree with assessment C), mainly because we started out with thirty students, and as of right now we have less than 10. If I had gone to Ratemyprofessors beforehand, I might not have taken this prof, who absolutely lives by his lectures.

SDN Motto: Take it with a grain of salt. :laugh::laugh:
 
I've used it every semester. Though I'll make a final decision about who to take only after personally speaking to people who took said class with said prof.
 
I determine my schedule and then determine the teacher using RMP. I have never NOT taken a class because a teacher has gotten a bad rating, but I have chosen "the better of the two" on three or four occasions.
 
This site came around after I finished my undergraduate degree (and I was locked into particular classes during my post-bacc). I've found my own ratings tend to correlate with how well a student did in my classes (tends to work that way with most of my student opinion surveys) - the students who do well or who consistently put forth good effort tended to write positive reviews; those who bombed it blamed everyone but themselves.
 
I check myself there and at myspace's "grade my professor". I teach at two seperate schools; a community college and a 4 year college. Same classes (Human A&P I and II) at both. Pretty much the same material. Use the same format, same book, same powerpoint, same tests. I get terrible reviews at the community college and all wonderful reviews at the 4 year college. Don't know why that is.
 
Not really ... people generally don't seek out websites to make unbiased comments about a professor. They normally do so because they loved the professor/course or despised it so it's usually hard to get a good sense.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
It's worth looking at, at least. I use it, but there often aren't enough reviews for me to put any stock in them. I'd need a prof to have at least 5+ in-depth reviews before I'd even pay attention.
 
No, I didn't. I often found that the people who commented were of the sort that thought it was outrageous that the professor would put difficult questions on an exam. God forbid. I had several professors that have a reputation for being the toughest ones in those fields (gen chem, physics, organic chem), but I think it was a huge help when it came to the MCAT.

I usually talked to my classmates who had experience with a professor, if I could, but otherwise, I didn't really worry too much about who was teaching my classes. In hindsight, I made some fortunate choices - a few faculty that I did NOT have later turned out to be either drunken perverts or individuals with serious, serious alcohol problems (to the extent that it impaired his teaching significantly).
 
I have found that there are (generally) three categories on the site

1) Teachers that have lots of reviews because they are awesome
2) Teachers that have lots of reviews because they suck
3) Teachers with a few ratings that are mixed (not great, not bad)

As always the best thing to do is talk to someone you know well that has taken a class from the professor and get their honest opinion. If you cant find someone then I'd go with a professor as long as they dont have really bad reviews. That goes back to #2 up there, professors tend to get tons of reviews when they horrible teachers. If I cant find a particular professor (or they only have a couple of mixed reviews) I tend to suppose they arent bad enough that tons of students got on there to complain about them.
 
It's great as long as you are good at weeding out the comments from the people who didn't put any effort into the class.

I usually don't look at the "easiness" rating. The clarity rating is decent, but I mainly look at the "helpfulness" rating.
 
It's good to find out who is an easy A, because that is the ONLY consideration student reviewers take into account.
 
I said in a previous post that I use it before class. I also do rate every professor/instructor after I complete classes. I've written only one bitter and scathing review. That was for a class in which I probably earned the only "A". It was a core course that started the semester as a full class, and ended with 4 of us who were either brazen enough to risk a failure or desperate enough to get that class out of the way.

I've also written one other poor, but not scathing, review for a class that could have been very interesting, but the instructor was poorly informed and boring, and the class was too easy.

You can usually tell which reviewers have axes to grind, and which have put thought into their reviews.
 
It was off for me. The o-chem prof I had that I loved (challenging, but in a good way, emphasized understanding) people complained about so much and gave such low marks for. Then the o-chem prof I had now that I'm totally struggling with (likes to emphasize memorization, even of stuff like boiling points!) had somewhat better reviews... I don't know, it's kind of a crap shoot.
 
From what i've noticed,
Good reviews= easy class
everything else= inconclusive
 
This site came around after I finished my undergraduate degree (and I was locked into particular classes during my post-bacc). I've found my own ratings tend to correlate with how well a student did in my classes (tends to work that way with most of my student opinion surveys) - the students who do well or who consistently put forth good effort tended to write positive reviews; those who bombed it blamed everyone but themselves.

I agree with Quix on this one. Plus, I remember that there really is not a large number of people that vote from each course. Thus, I would doubt that any measures of reliability would be high on a website such as rate my profs.
 
I actually disagree with most of you guys...I think ratemyprofessors is an extremely valuable asset. Not necessarily for finding out which teacher is "good" or "bad", but it's excellent for ferreting out whether a teeacher is the kind of POS who thinks he/she is god's gift to the world, ridicules students for asking questions, is unhelpful during office hours, etc...

It should be a given that you shouldn't pay attention to the ratings as far as whether the teacher was easy, hard, good or bad, but /why/....if everyone says the teacher is unhelpful during office hours, that probably means he/she is unhelpful during office hours. Likewise if the teacher is a fair grader and everyone says that, same thing. I don't think ratemyprofessors should be used to try to get the easiest teacher possible, however, I think it's a great resource to avoid horrible teachers so you don't get cheated out of your education...I dunno about you but I'm paying over twenty thousand dollars a year for it so I want my damn money's worth.
 
I use it, its a good tool, but also talk to your fellow students personally about professors
 
Top