Professor Snape may have likely gotten a set of very polarized ratings, if Hogwarts students used Rate My Professor. Image from Flickr.
When time comes to choose college class schedules, it can often feel like a shot in the dark – which is exactly where Rate My Professors comes in. Rate My Professor is an online service that allows students to anonymously rate and comment on the professors teaching at their colleges. The Rate My Professor system can be incredibly useful, but like most feedback systems, it has its flaws. No matter if you are funding your education with student loans or a mortgage loan modification, be sure you are informed about what you are getting yourself into.
Rate My Professor history
The web site Ratemyprofessors.com was created in 1999 and started as TeacherRatings.com. The web site has been sold twice and is now owned by MTVu, which is a subsidiary of the giant media company Viacom. The site was created with the idea of “enhancing your college experience, so you don’t end up taking classes that aren’t worthwhile.” Rate My Professor uses a 1-5 rating scale, with 1 being the worst and 5 being the best.
How Rate My Professor is helpful
Because Rate My Professor is an entirely anonymous web site, the ratings on it are very candid. The comments on Rate My Professor can also be very helpful to students who have no familiarity with a particular teacher or college, and gives at least some “inside information” about the professors they may not be familiar with. With more students than ever returning to school, the ratings on Rate My Professor can be like instant loans – very helpful in the short-term.
How Rate My Professor is suspect
The Rate My Professor system relies on students who are willing to rate their professors anonymously. While this could encourage more candid feedback, the anonymous system has also at times provided what could be inaccurate ratings. One study showed the the easier a class was and the more attractive the teacher, the more likely they would get a good rating on Rate My Professor. Others have expressed worry that Rate My Professor listings often give good ratings to teachers that may not provide the most comprehensive, educational or quality courses available.
Should you use Rate My Professor?
Like most other review and ratings tools, Rate My Professor can be useful. However, it is important to approach Rate My Professors with the same skepticism as other reviews. It is important to realize that the ratings on Rate My Professors are not statistically accurate, and unhappy students are more likely to rate their professors than happy students. Schools with a small number of students are also more likely to have skewed ratings, as there are not as many students to rate each professor.
Sources:
Inside Higher Education
Rate My Professors.com
I'm going to leave the teaching profession because of ratemyprofessor and I HAVE GOOD RATINGS. Ratemyprofessor has exposed my personal information on the internet to any stalker who wants to find me – it is disgusting and a violation of my privacy – I hope the creators of this site get sued when a professor is attacked and or stalked due to them posting defamatory incorrect and personal information without the professor's approval. DISGUSTING – this is why the United States is not even registering as average in educational value and the economy is and will remain in the dump.
I recently learned that I received negative, offensive, harmful, and inaccurate reviews on RateMyProfessor.com. The reviews were based on one class of students who did not want to earn their grade, in other words, students wanted to talk, complete assignments from other classess, and use computers during lecture. When I stopped their activities, that's when the class decided to act against me in addition to rating me on Rate My Professor.
I would like to challenge RateMyProfessor.com to require students to identify themselves before posting.
Lastly, I would like to know if there is any way a professor's name can be removed from RMP.com
RateMyProfessor.com is offensive. Adjunct salaries are dismal and a pittance when compared to the effort, time and energy that are required to teach a semester long course. RateMyProfessor.com, by posting unreliable reviews for public view, is destructive, not constructive, and acts as a deterrent for good, hard working teachers, particularly those who are essentially donating their time and really care about the students.
I recently learned that I received negative reviews on RateMyProfessor.com after my second semester of teaching part-time. Reviews were inaccurate and clearly driven by the receipt/anticipation of receipt of dissatisfactory grades rather than truth or objectivity. The reviews reflect less than 1% of the total students I taught and were authored well into the semester after grades had been given or after grades were posted for the semester. Grades should be based on effort and knowledge/skill level, not mere expectations of receiving a good grade without working hard and being able to demonstrate solid, comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter through quality work product. An essay that is riddled with composition and grammatical errors, is not comprehensive, and does not comply with writing assignment instructions is not good work product. My first class was much larger and provided very good student evaluations to the educational institution, copies of which I possess, despite the fact that I adhered to more stringent policies than I had with my second class, e.g., giving zero for late papers vs. one point grade reductions per day for late papers, no writing assignment options/extensions vs. providing writing assignment options/extensions, preparing additional chapter summaries for the second class etc … . A good number of students in my second class withdrew from the course after receiving the first grade of the semester. Not one student in my second class met with me outside of class during the semester. Yet, most students were very talkative in class, had no problems talking with me about non-scholastic matters, emailed me and had no problems making excuses for being late to class, late assignments etc… . Not one student challenged any grade received.
RateMyProfessor.com reviews are clearly not verified. For one thing, student reviews are anonymous. I challenge RateMyProfessor.com to require students to identify themselves before posting. RateMyProfessor posts potentially damaging reviews that are clearly not verified and inappropriately removes inaccurate reviews without removing the associated ratings. I invested a lot of unpaid time preparing for the course. I accommodated student needs by taking questions, reiterating important points, breaking down the material in various ways and incorporating student requests into lecture and selecting assignment topics. I made myself available to students via email, phone, before/after class and by appointment (and always responded promptly to any inquiries) and gave each student every opportunity to do well in the course by balancing challenging essays per departmental writing guidelines with additional more easy grading components, e.g., a straight forward multiple choice final exam and class participation. Students were provided with a course syllabus clearly describing the course, expectations, grading, and attendance policy. The syllabus indicated that grades would be reduced due to excessive absence, yet several students ignored this policy. Very detailed writing assignment instructions were distributed and reviewed in class for any questions. All of the writing assignments were take-home and based on the assigned text for the course. All students were encouraged to use the school’s writing and reading centers. I provided detailed feedback on every writing assignment pertaining to substantive as well as composition/grammatical mistakes. Students grades were uniformly adjusted upward at semester’s end to avoid failing anyone.
go to MyEdu instead
Is that really all there is to it because that’d be flabberasgtnig.
"Darling" How do you evaluate the "Getting" of an A" as opposed to being denied a deserved A ? Just curious because it makes all the difference. There was a Prof that I thought was a complete A-hole. Good teacher,very demanding. But an A-hole. Everyone said not to take his class. I ended up being forced to if I wanted to graduate in May. Several years later,I discovered that I was the self absorbed a-hole. I thought that I was owed everything. Then I grew up. I now understand that the Prof was actually trying to help & teach. Still have not thanked him. I should do that but have not….. I still have some growing to do
I have never relied on the website before and have had my share of really atrocious teachers at my community college. I recently decided to use the website recently to plan my next term. Yes, some of the people are probably just whiny and obnoxious slackers. However, I have since looked up every ineffective teacher I have at my school, and.. guess what? The have low ratings.
I have had a few teachers that I think should not be teaching any longer, and sure enough, the are receiving low ratings. I reviewed one of my teachers from this current term before attending class and he had a horrible rating. I thought, "Eh, he can't be that bad. Sure, it says he's challenging, but I can deal with challenge."
Well, halfway through the term half of the class had dropped it since this teacher is horrible. I continued to stick it out optimistically, and I finally agree, he's awful. I've talked with about 1/2 of the class that is left, and none of them are getting As, myself included. The highest is a B. So, while not perfect, I think there might be some accuracy to the ratings.
Rate my professor is a biased website. EVERYONE LISTEN – DO NOT TRUST THAT WEBSITE. I HAVE TWICE WROTE HONEST REVIEWS AND THEY HAVE GOTTEN DELETED FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.
I like ratemyprofessor.com, I use it to write my experience with a professor and hope my advice would help the next student.
Using my professor can be a great tool–however, it's like anything else. The quality of the comments depends upon the intent/honesty/insightfulness of the poster.
Definately use rate my professor's. ITisthe Most Accuirate way to find out about you're profs!!!!
I have a posting under my name that isn't even about me….I don't even teach the subject mentioned…but how would I remove it?
Math Teacher, try contacting Rate My Professors at http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ContactUs.jsp . They should be able to help you.
I agree this site can be useful, especially since most colleges do not allow students access to student evaluations (and some don't even require prof be evaluated). Places like Harvard are the exception by allowing a course "shopping" period and publishing a student review guide of all profs there. Especially at atate universities today, a student is lucky to get into any of the classes they need to graduate on time. At small colleges, students seldom have much choice among the limited faculty. Community and state colleges (and many privates) rely heavily on adjuncts who may be hired at the last minute and switched from term to term, so previous students can offer little help to next year's students.
Two uses: choosing an instructor or class (s)he teaches AND strategies for success once enrolled. Major limitation with any evaluation by students, of course: respondents can only compare with other classes they've taken, so students have no basis for comparison with how effectively the course is designed or what they should have learned. For that, you need outside peer review via classroom visitations (something only a handful of colleges or faculty unions would ever allow). Personal experience: when I was a chair, we hired a certifiable schitzo who didn't even use a textbook or know where she was, yet I received zero student complaints the entire year before she could be fired.