<p>Sylvan- I think ratemywhatever is a double-edged sword. From a parent or student perspective its quite a useful tool, both for giving feedback and for getting more background on a class or deciding which ones to avoid. But from a teacher’s point of view it can be a nightmare. People can say whatever they want, and often its quite ill-informed. In making career choices, those websites are one thing I’d consider if I wanted to go into teaching. It’s no fun to have your name and reputation thrown around, and it gives the students decidedly more power over the teachers.</p>
<p>If I were in your position, I think I’d try to have a thicker skin. People WILL say unfair things on ratemyprof, but I guess you just have to hope it evens out. If its truly libelous I know teachers have had ratings removed.</p>
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Sometimes you just see what you expect to see.</p>
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<p>Most universities that I’ve looked at will take calculus I as a co-requisite with Physics I so maybe he was generalizing his own experience.</p>
<p>Apply statistical methods to determine if there might be a bias against female STEM profs, ye math folks. ;)</p>
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<p>I was thinking more in terms of comparing the teachers in one’s planned major to the rest of the school and/or comparing faculty in similarly-ranked schools (HYPSM, Ivies, top LACs).</p>
<p>Many schools have official or unofficial teacher rating systems some of which are online. I know I’ve looked at the Tufts teacher ratings at one point. Also at my husband med schools they always pass out teacher/TA ratings for the course. (The course has lectures by several different professors.) They take what the students say quite seriously. Interestingly some years the students really like my husband, others not so much.</p>
<p>I’d never looked at this site…guessing the kids have. Interestingly I searched on several people I know who are profs and the ratings and comments seemed believable. I think the important thing to keep in mind is that people tend to click or not click with other people. Interestingly, I don’t think the selectivity of a college ensures that there will be the “best” profs. My oldest is at a “lesser” school in the selectivity ratings but the many of the kids love their profs…and many of the profs love their students. A large chunk of kids and profs are at this school because they want to be “at this school” and living in this community. That can make a huge, huge difference. When we talk about quality of an education sometimes we tend to think on a macro level - how many Nobel prize winners, what are the “stats” or the students and we forget these intimate relationships and how impactful they can be. Happy engaged profs and happy engaged students can’t be underestimated.</p>
<p>One thing I would suggest for your students when they are doing faculty evaluations is if they are going to comment give specifics. One girl commented that I had made a remark so insulting to women that she never returned to recitation again (I think she was an international student who might have been offended by something that American students would not have thought anything about). </p>
<p>She didn’t say what the offending remark was, so I was left to wonder and couldn’t really make any “self-improvement” since I didn’t have a clue as to where I had been offensive.</p>
<p>I used to like rmp, but after MTV bought them out several years ago, i’ve been looking for alternatives. The search doesn’t work, it’s slow during registration seasons, pain to add a new professor etc… Oh…and *** is the hot thing? But sadly, they are the only one with a decent amount of professor reviews built up. A new site has emerged called professor performance which looks really great and it’s easy to search/add stuff… but we’ll have to wait and see how it picks up. I guess since it’s new, it’s gonna take some time build up enough professor reviews to be actually usable. I couldn’t find any professors from my school except like 2 or 3, but I think it’s pretty heavily used in uconn. </p>
<p>The few things i like most is that it has some sort of algorithm to disallow the same student from rating twice or more. Also there are mini forums (or comments) under each rating so rater-professor or student & the rater can send msgs to each other.
The url is [Professor</a> Performance Rate Professor](<a href=“http://www.professorperformance.com%5DProfessor”>http://www.professorperformance.com) btw if you wanna take a look.</p>
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<p>I’ve heard this from more than one student. </p>
<p>As for looking at RMP as a tool in deciding among prospective colleges, I absolutely would if I was looking at schools where my department of interest was small and didn’t have many teachers.</p>
<p>^But it’s also worth noting that some schools have their own sites that are analogous to RMP</p>
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<p>I looked at Professor Performance. Almost all of the ratings I saw were from 2002 to 2004, so the site isn’t nearly as useful as RMP.</p>