RateMyProfessor and its Usefulness

[MexicanDr]

How often do you guys go by the reviews of this site to select a professor/class?

A class I want and need to take next semester is only being taught by a professor who has mixed reviews on this site. There are 4-5 reviews total and 3 have the not so happy face.

I mean, have you guys ever taken a class with a professor whom had really bad/mixed reviews on this site because you had no choice and found out it was not so bad after all? That you actually enjoyed his teaching style and the way his class was given/structured?

Thanks in advance,

Eddie

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Lokhtar]

It's important to remember that generally the only people who bother posting are people who've had an especially negative, or especially positive experiences. I do look at it to get a general idea, but I've had classes where the description fit perfectly, and others where it did not at all. So I take it with a grain of salt.

 

[allinthecookies]

I'm really cautious with it. Especially when I see people writing negative reviews for science classes with writing like this:

"DIS CLASS WAS SO HURD!!11 U HAV 2 READ ALL TEH TIME OR U WILL FAIL!!!!"

I mean seriously? You're expected to read and study for a class -gasp- the HORROR!

 

[minicow]

RMP is my best friend...but some reviews are off...try to ask someone who has taken the prof. before...though im not sure how you would go about doing that (maybe stalk the prof and catch students after one of the classes?)
ive taken profs with negative reviews but i wont take a prof with multiple "not a fair prof! loses tests/papers! etc, etc" reviews

 

[ThaliaNox]

I have used RateMyProfessor in the past, but always with a grain of salt. Some of my favorite professors have poor rating there because they teach hard classes. Many people aren't satisfied with a teacher unless the class is easy and they do not have to do any work. Actually read the comments. Like someone else said, red flags can be raised there with stuff like "always loses stuff." Things like " i wurked rely hard and only gotta d he's a jerk" Not so helpful.

 

[Kickback]

In response to your question: yes, I used the information on the site and my experience in one class (a weed-out course where 10% of the class dropped after the first exam) was different from the majority of posters.

Keep in mind that the majority of people that post reviews are doing so because (sorry about the confusing qualifying statements):

A) They absolutely loved the teacher and/or it was an easy class and/or they got a good grade and/or they are good students

or

B) They hated the teacher and/or it was a hard class and/or they got a bad grade and/or they are bad students

What I like to use RateMyProfessor for is finding teachers that use powerpoints, and post their lectures/lecture guides online; basically finding out the details on how they teach.

I would not be too worried about 3/5 being bad reviews, because it is probably those in the class that didn't do well in the class. That being said, I have no clue what the comments said.

But if you start getting around 70% bad reviews, then I would have some warning lights going off in my head.

 

[schrizto]

I had to take a class and none of the professors had good reviews. So I just picked one with the best time. On the first day, I thought the professor wasn't so bad. But then as it progressed the stuff on RateMyProfessor became to a degree true and understandable. I'm going to pay more attention to the ratings on that site now.

 

[dingyibvs]

Not all that accurate, IMO.

 

[boaz]

In my experience, the ratings have usually been slanted towards the negative side, especially when it comes to "weed-out" intro science courses. So, take it with a grain of salt and if there aren't alternatives don't write off a professor just because he got tons of negative ratings like:

"DIS CLASS WAS SO HURD!!11 U HAV 2 READ ALL TEH TIME OR U WILL FAIL!!!!"

 

[brooklynblunder]

asking people in your school directly >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>looking at your schools course evaluation guide>>>>>>>>> ratemywhatevs

 

[BBender716]

It's better for larger schools. At my school, we had multiple professors teaching different classes/science pre reqs. Therefore it was more accurate to compare professors between the same class. This way you could be sure to take the pre-req. with the professor who had the more positive reviews.

RateMyProfessors as an absolute measure of a professor is not such a good idea. Using it to compare between 2 who teach the same class, gold.

 

[muhali3]

Teachers of hard classes usually have low ratings. If you are conscientious and study well, you should do well despite the ratings of the teacher. Unless the rating is below a 1, I wouldn't worry. I'm taking a class right now with a teacher who has a rating of 2, and I find it to be extremely easy.

 

[Thomas Hearns]

Hard to be useful because opinions vary so greatly... I think it's good sometimes when you can read the reviews and there are certain "red flags" to look for... so like someone said, take it with a grain of salt, but it can be useful.

 

[BenUstudent]

I love rate my professor.com/ I use it every semester and I read all postings, yet I weedout the B.S. ones and make my own assumptions. So far It has been accurate to some degree (dead on about 5/6 of the time)

 

[oaklandguy]

I think RMP is very helpful. It's usually accurate, and I especially appreciate when the posts include how a professor runs their class, i.e. power-points, multiple choice tests, essay tests, etc. My only problem with it is that the students at my school usually leave bad reports on professors that really aren't that bad. Just remember, it's not always accurate and it all depends on the point of view; it's subjective information that is biased.

 

[TheMightySmiter]

I would try to avoid a professor with consistently low RMP ratings, and tend towards one with consistently high ratings, but I wouldn't NOT take a class just because a prof had a few bad comments. My absolute favorite professor had some really awful comments on there, because his teaching style was very unique--either you loved him or hated him. Use it for intro classes if you have a lot of choice, but it's best to try to talk to people who have taken a specific prof to get their comments.

 

[vickpick]

i try to take the reviews into consideration if there are more than 10 of them and if they are recent.

If you are actually intelligent, you'll find that most people want to whine abt how hard the class is... on rate my prof... but in actuality the class ends up being not so bad..

and of course when people say its easy. it always ends up being easy. 🙂 luckily...

 

[vickpick]

pick a prof used to be an awesome site with professor grade distribution, but now its a paid site..

 

[drareg]

ive found gems in there

 

[greg1184]

I absolutely used Ratemyprofessors as a source for choosing my professors (along with the official student evaluations of professors from the university). I thought to myself, of all reasons to not do well in a course, it WAS NOT going to be because of a bad or unreasonably hard professor.

Remember one thing: The only thing that admissions committees will see on your record is the letter grade and the GPA. They do not want to know whether or not you had a bad professor. They will not care that you got a mediocre grade in a class "but you learned alot!". Choose your professors and classes wisely. For example, I had an orgo class that one professor gave many C's because of the nature of the curve of the difficult class, and another professor who is still very hard, but at least have a chance to get a decent grade. Use as many sources as you can: Ratemyprofessors, student evaluations, word of mouth from other students. If you see a tendency between these sources, they may be correct.

Pay close attention to repetitive comments. For example, if you see many reviews of a physics professor who "dislikes premeds," then pick another professor if there is one available. If not, try taking the class elsewhere in the summer.

The majority of my professors I have had at my university have been outstanding, partly because I was careful in choosing my classes when it was possible.

 

[MT2MD]

I found RMP very helpful and I agree with previous posts that it's more accurate for larger institutions. At my school, we had to take what are known as DECs, it's basically courses in different subjects that are not part of your major. I rely exclusively on RMP and from friends with regard to the DECs I take. It's pretty hard to ignore RMP when you have 30 comments panning the professor.

 

[orthomyxo]

Honestly, I've never even heard of the site, but I doubt I would take anything on there seriously. People love to say that professors suck just so they have an excuse as to why they failed the course, when in actuality, they were just lazy.

 

[Mitch556]

I'm really cautious with it. Especially when I see people writing negative reviews for science classes with writing like this

Exactly. I usually end up looking up my professors before the semester starts but I try not to choose my classes based on the reviews as most of the time they are off base.

 

[StormingWynn]

I use it to find hot female professors. =) lol, well in part. I've used it for all my professors and thus far it has not failed me. All my classes are with fun teachers and good teaching strategies. My physics teacher is HILARIOUS! I saw that in the reviews. My french teacher is just plain fun. My Comp teacher is nice with grading and really fair. My Bio teacher is ok, I guess. I used it to find an Anthropology professor over the summer and I'm going to tell you, that teacher was crazzzzzz and SO FUN!!!!

 

[akinetopsia]

No doubt. Only sign up for professors with the red pepper by their name. 👍

 

[tuffguy13]

Honestly, I've never even heard of the site, but I doubt I would take anything on there seriously. People love to say that professors suck just so they have an excuse as to why they failed the course, when in actuality, they were just lazy.

It is valuable to go there though and at least get a heads up. I picked a teacher with very little info (1 or 2 reviews maybe) and things started out well. Several weeks into the semester, her true personality emerged and her grading policies were BIZARRE.

As a competitive student trying to get good grades for med school, I don't consider myself lazy by any means. In other words I bust my ass in all my classes. I missed a quiz due to illness, so instead of letting me earn my grade by retaking it (would have lasted literally 5 minutes), she told me she would give me a score equal to the class average. HOLD UP - average scores usually comes out to about a C, and this was going to be no exception because the people in this class weren't the brightest bulbs. I was gonna get points (or lose points, if you want to look at it that way) for what THE CLASS DID. Not myself. Not what I earned. Strike 1.

Then she assigned us group projects; one online discussion board assignment had specific guidelines to follow which probably 3 out of 6 group members actually did. The other 3 didn't do anything to participate at all - they chose to sit on the couch or party that weekend. The 3 of us that participated tried to make up for the fact that the rest of the group did nothing by having more discussion responses and replies. Instead of earning points as individuals, we all got 50% on the assignment. The hard workers got an F. The lazy workers got an F. Strike 2.

I consulted her shortly afterwards about what we had to do as a group to get an A for any future assignments like that. She said that we had to consult the group and make rules for them to follow. I asked her, "how are we going to force them to do anything if grades are not a motivator?" where she replied something like "thats the trick.." I was in utter disbelief. The only way I was going to get these group members to participate was either 1) paying them off or 2) going to their houses and becoming violent. Wasn't really down for either. Strike 3.

Anyway, almost a few weeks after that, a whole new batch of bad reviews popped up for this teacher. I agree that the people who feel shafted are the ones who put up bad reviews, but just because they put up bad reviews does not mean they were necessarily lazy.

I think it never hurts to know what other people have to say. It never hurts to be educated on your teacher. All I know is I'm never taking that prof again.

 

[chman]

The thing to look for is when a bunch of people say the exact same thing. I usually take that to be the truth.

However, I have had professors that have gotten bad reviews that I thought were great professors. They were just not the easiest in the world so they go bad reviews. On the flip side, I have seen professors who were utterly useless get great reviews because their class was/is a cake walk, but I learned nothing.

 

[CatchingUp]

It's been pretty accurate for me. However, be advised that some professors actually go on there and rate themselves.

 

[JokerMD]

it's useful for lower divs. useless for upper divs

 

[Uisa]

Yeah, the ratings are of subjectivity so take it with a grain of salt... nothing more.

However, I felt that talking to many peers who have taken the specific professors before, will give you an idea of how he/she is.

 

[JJMrK]

Worth using if you can't decide between taking a class this semester vs next semester, or taking one teacher vs the other. Not worth changing your schedule solely because of reviews on there, IMO. In other words, if you need a class to keep you on schedule, by all means take it.

 

[anonymousername]

i suppose this thread isn't too old to bump..

i honestly don't like ratemyprofessor.com, only the best and the worst students contribute to it. If the worst students are more motivated to write something nasty than the best students are to write something good, the professor's class doesn't fill up as fast.

a normal posting on ratemyprofessor consists with something to the effect of:

yO dIs b1tCh dont gRade guud...hE ain't fare so stAy aVVay lawl lulz... mikeymike227 out...

 

[LuciusVorenus]

My physics teacher had a 1/5 on that site
It's week 7 and I still think she's been pretty great
I think most people on that site go as far as to rate "subjects" as opposed to "teachers"

On the other hand, I took a chem teacher that had a 4/5 to begin with and ended with a 1/5 that quarter (keep in mind that people change, especially with how they grade, etc).

So I pretty much only use it now for classes that aren't curved, because if they are, then it shouldn't matter if the average was "too low." Top 15% of a class will always be an A no matter what the average.

 

[jvesco22]

If you are looking for an easy non-science/math class, ratemyprofessor helps a lot in my opinion. You can tell from the posts whether or not the Professor is an easy A.

However, for a science/math/more work than normal class, you have to go through the rating with a fine-toothed comb. You have many slackers that will post and say that so and so's BIO class was so hard and thing like "she teaches it like we have our PHD." When you see comments like those, I tend to believe those are just the idiots who thought they could cruise and get an A. But you want to make sure that if the professor has 200 responses and 199 of them say the same thing, chances are, it's not good for you.

For science classes, try to find an even mix along the lines of "You have to study hard." The last thing you want is an extremely easy A in a subject that you will be tested on in the future, a la MCAT!!!

Also, pickaprof.com is great too(if the stats are accurate)

 

[TooMuchResearch]

Use the site with caution. It can sometimes help you spot a bad teacher, it will never help you spot a good one.

 

[Gallix23]

I myself haven't used it yet, but my cousin's boyfriend (who is a senior at my university) swears by it and that was one of the first tips of advice he had for me.

 

[Mopp22]

RMP is my best friend...but some reviews are off...try to ask someone who has taken the prof. before...though im not sure how you would go about doing that (maybe stalk the prof and catch students after one of the classes?)

Ha! People at my school weren't afraid to stalk me to get opinions on my classes and professors.

 

[heinzmoleman]

hahaha so true I once read a post about my english professor and it went something like this.


Yo dis (Vulgarity***) was maddddd herd, I handeds mi paper in and she gimme an d.

haha I swear it was just like that.

 

[49erfan]

I look at ratemyprofessors, but only for information seeking, NOT to decide which classes to take by which professor.

Having bad professors is a part of life so get used to it.

In science large lecture halls, if the professor is rated as interesting by students, I go to class. If the professor is boring or is not well liked by students for failing too many students in the science class on ratemyprofessors, I don't go to class, and just read the textbook and do as many practice problems I find from the textbook and supplemental books.

Often times these professors who have bad ratings on ratemyprofessor, don't take the time to get to know students, don't care if students show up to their large lecture, and themselves are not interested in teaching and just want to fail many students. I find it absolutely worthless to go to class in this scenario, and find it much more valuable to study from the textbook in my room and just show up to take exams.

So basically, I use ratemyprofessor to determine only if I should attend lecture because the professor is interesting, or skip lecture and study in my room because the professor is horrible. Simple.

 

[vin5cent0]

The only usefulness of that site is to look for repetitive comments. For example, when looking up my English professor, I noticed the majority of people said he was horribly unorganized and whatnot. Guess what? She's the most unorganized teacher I've ever had, and it makes it difficult to get ahead in that class.

When you see one or two that say horrific things about the professor, you know it's just that one guy who skipped a test and the professor didn't let him make it up, hence the professor being so awful. Same goes for absolutely glowing remarks amidst average/negative reviews.

Also, keep in mind that everyone finds different things that attract them to a professor. My math teacher last year was incredibly, insanely hard for a pre-calc class. Pre-calc, calc 1 and calc 2 tutors couldn't help me with my homework often. Yet, not a single review mentioned how difficult he was, just how great of a teacher he was (in general, he was very good).

 

[circulus vitios]

One of my professors has bad reviews but I don't have any trouble getting an A in the class. I guess the people writing the bad reviews are pissed off idiots that are too stupid to recognize why they're getting horrible grades.

 

[MilkmanAl]

I like the site, personally. It's not perfect, by any means, but some feedback is better than none, even if it is from pissed off idiots. 😛 Actually once my roommate introduced me to RateMyProfessors, I almost felt a duty to post on it. Help out your fellow students, guys. Put up some reviews. With any luck, you'll counterbalance those idiots.

 

[anonymousername]

I like the site, personally. It's not perfect, by any means, but some feedback is better than none, even if it is from pissed off idiots. 😛 Actually once my roommate introduced me to RateMyProfessors, I almost felt a duty to post on it. Help out your fellow students, guys. Put up some reviews. With any luck, you'll counterbalance those idiots.

what's the process for enrolling in classes at medical school? do you have a variety of classes to choose from or do you stick to the schedule the institution plans out for students?

 

[jiayo]

It's a helpful site..but everything posted there should be taken with a grain of salt.

For example, I was searching a professor who is known to teach the hardest biology course in our undergrad. There were awful things, like "she crosses out things in red and makes derogatory comments" "she belittles you if you're not a favorite" "if you put 10+ hours a week you'll manage a C" etc etc

Of course, that had me going as a sophomore.

I took her class, ended up acing it, and now she's my adviser. I absolutely adore the woman, and I don't know where those comments came from.

It seems that people are more likely to post if a professor is bad instead of if they're really good IMO....soooo it's good and all, but I wouldn't trust it 100%..or even 75%

 

[MilkmanAl]

what's the process for enrolling in classes at medical school? do you have a variety of classes to choose from or do you stick to the schedule the institution plans out for students?

Everyone at a given school has the same schedule for the first two years. There are tons of different methods for assigning rotations in 3rd and 4th years.

 

[Pills Of Soap]

I had bad professors my freshman year of college. I later learned about rateofmyprofessor.com and I never had a bad professor again. MLIA.

 

[MSSM2013]

It is valuable to go there though and at least get a heads up. I picked a teacher with very little info (1 or 2 reviews maybe) and things started out well. Several weeks into the semester, her true personality emerged and her grading policies were BIZARRE.

As a competitive student trying to get good grades for med school, I don't consider myself lazy by any means. In other words I bust my ass in all my classes. I missed a quiz due to illness, so instead of letting me earn my grade by retaking it (would have lasted literally 5 minutes), she told me she would give me a score equal to the class average. HOLD UP - average scores usually comes out to about a C, and this was going to be no exception because the people in this class weren't the brightest bulbs. I was gonna get points (or lose points, if you want to look at it that way) for what THE CLASS DID. Not myself. Not what I earned. Strike 1.

Then she assigned us group projects; one online discussion board assignment had specific guidelines to follow which probably 3 out of 6 group members actually did. The other 3 didn't do anything to participate at all - they chose to sit on the couch or party that weekend. The 3 of us that participated tried to make up for the fact that the rest of the group did nothing by having more discussion responses and replies. Instead of earning points as individuals, we all got 50% on the assignment. The hard workers got an F. The lazy workers got an F. Strike 2.

I consulted her shortly afterwards about what we had to do as a group to get an A for any future assignments like that. She said that we had to consult the group and make rules for them to follow. I asked her, "how are we going to force them to do anything if grades are not a motivator?" where she replied something like "thats the trick.." I was in utter disbelief. The only way I was going to get these group members to participate was either 1) paying them off or 2) going to their houses and becoming violent. Wasn't really down for either. Strike 3.

Anyway, almost a few weeks after that, a whole new batch of bad reviews popped up for this teacher. I agree that the people who feel shafted are the ones who put up bad reviews, but just because they put up bad reviews does not mean they were necessarily lazy.

I think it never hurts to know what other people have to say. It never hurts to be educated on your teacher. All I know is I'm never taking that prof again.

strike 1 is fair because she doesn't know if you already saw others answers since quiz was probably graded and given back. it's unfair for you to retake.

Strike 2 and 3 is basically how it happens in med school. You pull your grade up or you suffer the consequence. It's done to discourage gunners like you.