How accurate is Rate My Professors?

Student Lounge College Life
1

<p>I was wondering what you folks really think of rate my professors. I speak with alot of students, and for the most part, they say it is very accurate. I would guess that the professor that has a really high rating, or a very low rating is probably very accurate. It is the middle of the road like the 3.0 or 3.2 ratings that you would have to make up your mind on. </p>

<p>Do not get me wrong, I do not think that you should take it as gospel, but if you have a professor with a 1.6 or a 2.1 rating and there are 20 reviews, all 20 folks cannot be crazy. </p>

<p>I personally like rate my professors. Back in the day, we just relied on word of mouth, but in today's technology era, it pays off. Why have a lousy professor kill your GPA?? Sometimes it is unavoidable to get a bad professor since he or she may be the only one to teach that course, however, in that case, you can always take the course in the summer if need be, at a local college.</p>

<p>Anyway, I was just curious as to what you folks thought of it </p>

<p>Thanks</p>

2

<p>I am a college professor. I think you are right to believe that you cannot trust a rating if only a few students have participated. A rating created by many students over several years may be more reliable. But not necessarily. Consider: I have been at the same school since before RMP existed. I have taught many thousands of students. I have less than 30 RMP reviews.</p>

<p>There are things to look out for. Students with an axe to grind may be more interested in rating a professor. One very angry student who has a big personality can also encourage other students to post negative reviews, and that can skew the ratings unnaturally. Look out for clusters of negative ratings and ratings that use a lot of the same words.</p>

<p>Look out for clusters of positive ratings too. There really are professors who encourage their good students to leave positive ratings and may even bribe them with cookies or extra credit. And some students may have had such a good experience that they leave positive ratings that don’t mean a lot. Students who have an average experience don’t have a lot of motivation to use RMP. But that describes almost everybody.</p>

<p>Positive ratings may also mean an easier professor, not a better one. If 10 students love a professor, but only one says that she was never challenged in the class, that one student might really be onto something.</p>

<p>Comments like “Worst professor ever” are not very useful. I have received some of those. I have also received “Best professor ever” comments. Obviously, I can’t be both.</p>

<p>Comments like “Professor can be very sarcastic at times” are probably pretty accurate. What’s not clear is whether the professor is having fun with a student or deliberately being cruel. Is this something the student experienced himself, or did he simply witness it?</p>

<p>“Assigns too much work” is not very clear. Too much for whom? “Assigns 100 pages of reading each week” is a useful comment – though the round number worries me a little.</p>

<p>“Professor assigns essays on controversial topics and only gives high grades to students who agree with his personal views” is not a good sign. If you see this more than once, and not all in the same semester, there may be a problem.</p>

<p>Be sure to notice course numbers. You might see a pattern of negative reviews for gen ed courses, but positive reviews for courses in the major. Even then, it’s hard to know if the professor does a poor job with the gen ed course, or if the gen ed population is simply more grumpy than the majors.</p>

3

<p>Thank you. Maybe you can answer this question. Why is it that the universites will let a professor keep his or her job if they cannot even speak english?? I am not being sarcastic here. There are many colleges where you cannot even understand what the professor is saying. How in the world can you do well in that course, and how is it that the professors keeps his or her job?</p>

<p>Is it tenure?? is it frugality on the part of the university. They do not want to shell out the money for a competent professor?</p>

<p>I realize that once you are in college a professor will not hold your hand. However, some professors will just say “read the textbook” really?? Your going to teach yourself auditing or forensic accounting if your are an accounting major?? No offense, but it is not like reading a psych 101 book. That is what infuriates me. The incompetence of some professors that cannot even speak a lick of english.</p>

<p>Now I know why folks kill to be in an ivy league school or a notch under the ivy’s like university of chicago, or tufts etc. Not that all the professors there are perfect, but I bet you they can speak english!!</p>

4

<p>Teaching is only a small aspect of what most professors do.</p>

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<p>I’ve learned not to pay much attention to the actual ratings. I’ve found that the comments are generally pretty accurate, so I go through and read those to get an idea. And yes, definitely look at course numbers; some professors are completely different depending on what class you’re taking with them and your interest level.</p>

6

<p>

Spoken by someone who has not taken a course at a top-tier college.</p>

<p>All professors speak English; whether you understand their accent is a different story. At HYPMS, even if the instructor is US-born and you can understand him/her perfectly, there is no guarantee that you will not have a TA leading the discussion sections who is not a native English speaker.</p>

<p>Back to the original question, many universities have their own guide which may be more useful that RMP as all students in a particular course are given the evaluation. Examples include Harvard’s Q guide. As with RMP, the value added will be dependent upon the number of respondents and the quality of the reviews.</p>

7

<p>Teaching skills are not high on the list of priorities for most universities. Most PhD programs do not require instruction in teaching, except perhaps for a short course that students might take before they becomes TAs. That part varies from school to school and program to program.</p>

<p>Ultimately, the problem lies with your state legislature. They could change the job requirements tomorrow if they wanted. But they have different priorities.</p>

<p>A bazillion people take classes with professors who do not teach well, but almost no one gets angry enough about it to write their state legislators or (even better) to support a candidate for the legislature who pledges to improve the quality of teaching. I really don’t know why.</p>

8

<p>I think Rate My Professors should be used in conjunction with said instructor’s course evaluation ratings. Most colleges that I know have databases where you can see overall student satisfaction with a professor’s course, his or her effectiveness, grading style, etc. </p>

<p>It’s important to note the type of stuff said in each review as well. If complaints about a certain teacher are well-articulated and consistent, then that’s something to watch out for. But if it’s just stuff like “super mean!!!” or whatnot, then feel free to disregard those. I personally really like RateMyProfessors because I think that the rankings of most instructors who have more than say, 20 or 30 reviews are pretty accurate. It’s definitely helped me when building my course schedule and allowed me to avoid less-than-optimal classes.</p>

<p>Good luck! </p>

9

<p>only problem is when that crappy professor is the only one to teach that course, then you are screwed unless you take the course over the summer at another local university</p>

10

<p>I used to use RMP about 10 years ago when I was in college. It was big back then and lots of students were filling out reviews for professors on it… I just looked at it now and reviews seem kinda sparse, like not a lot of students use it anymore. It may be different for your school though…</p>

<p>To any extent, I found most of the reviews to be pretty helpful. I usually ignored the reviews that didn’t have any justifications written, or if they reflected an atypical experience.</p>

11

<p>It can be a valuable source, but it has to be taken with a grain of salt. As others have already pointed out, a lot of the negative reviews on there come from students that did poorly in the class and want an outlet through which they can vent. </p>

<p>There’s a sociology/anthropology professor at my school that has a reputation for being a very hard professor. A lot of people don’t like him because his classes are difficult, and he has a really bad rating on RMP. I’ve had three courses with him, and he’s one of the best professors I’ve ever had. He’s an incredibly intelligent person and he knows the material like the back of his hand. If you ask him a question, he is going to answer it with theoretical perspective, applied examples, and multiple viewpoints. He knows the stuff, and he expects you to know it too. </p>

<p>A lot of students take courses like Intro Sociology with him and expect it to basically be a blowoff class. Then they are very surprised when they find out that it’s going to be difficult. What I’ve found is that good students absolutely love him, and the lazy students that only want to put in minimal effort end up hating him. His ratings aren’t a reflection of how good of a teacher he is. They’re a reflection of people that don’t want to work to understand the material. </p>

<p>I have seen some negative ratings on there that I’ve found to be quite accurate, and I’ve found some positive ratings that I didn’t really agree with. It can serve as a useful tool, but you’re much better off asking people around campus that have actually taken classes with the professor in question. </p>

12

<p>I personally like RMP. However, I find that course specific reviews are far more helpful than general “best/worst professor ever” “terrible” “great” reviews. I like reviews that give insight to the specifics of the class itself. </p>

<p>For all of my professors this semester, RMP has been spot on - especially with my Environmental professor. RMP said that the class consisted of three take home tests, 30% participation, and a few homework assignments. It was 100% correct and I really appreciated knowing the structure of the class ahead of time. Those sorts of reviews would strike me as being the most beneficial to students - so if you do feel compelled to rate your professors at the end of the semester, I think providing course specific insight would be more helpful than just evocative “I hate/love him/her so much!” or whatever. </p>

<p>Some of my professors (one that I am taking both this semester and next semester and another that I am taking next semester) are new to the University so they do not have reviews specific to my school, but they have reviews specific to the schools they taught at formerly. My current Religious Studies professor used to teach at a university in Florida and I read some of his reviews and many of his policies (and general remarks about his personality) are identical to my own experience with him. Even such reviews as “tests are based solely on lectures” and “attendance mandatory” carried over, which I thought was pretty cool. I was a little worried because I’m taking a Political Science class next semester with a professor who just came to my school from a different university so he has no RMP reviews for my school/class but he received excellent ratings at his old school - so I’m assuming he’ll be just as good (hopefully) here.</p>

<p>RMP can also be tailored to accommodate what you’re looking to get out of a class. Certain classes you may feel that you want to be challenged - this is particularly true for major courses. You want a professor who will push you intellectually - so RMP would allow you to steer clear from professors that have tons of reviews talking about constant cancelled classes and associations with being an “easy A” or “fluff class.” I’ve come across certain phrasing that I think is pretty helpful - upon reading reviews of certain Political Science and English professors, I’ve read things like “It’d be a shame for any Poli Sci major at this University to graduate without having taken a class with Professor So-and-So” followed by specifics as to why that’s so. </p>

<p>On the other hand - if you’re trying to address some arbitrary general ed requirement that you have zero interest in - you may very well want an easy A; you don’t necessarily want to have to be challenged in a Gender Studies course if you’re a Nursing or Physics major. Some 'reviews might read “looking to fulfill XYZ general ed without killing your GPA - professor xyz/class 123 will do just that.”</p>

<p>I think a student’s success in college is mostly based upon their own work ethic, determination, and raw intelligence. However - crafting a schedule with well respected, well received professors whose policies and teaching habits are aligned with your own work ethic will make your semester substantially better. It’s hard to motivate yourself to go to class when you can’t stand to even look or listen to your professor. </p>

13

<p>I’ve found RMP to be biased against Math/Computer Science professors. I’ve had plenty of professors with sub-2.0 ratings whose only “negative” aspect is the difficulty of their class!</p>

14

<p>That’s the biggest problem. If you look up professors that teach Calculus II, you’ll find that the majority of them are “horrible professors that can’t teach the material and don’t care about their students.”</p>

<p>Calc II is a hard class. A lot of people just don’t have what it takes to make it. That isn’t a reflection on the professor necessarily. Sometimes the student simply didn’t dedicate themselves to it. </p>

15

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<p>They certainly can! People who have had a very bad experience are more likely to be motivated to go onto Rate My Professor, and 20 students can be a very small fraction of a professor’s students.</p>

<p>Let’s take the example of a mid-career professor who has been teaching for 10 years. Let’s say he teaches 5 classes a year and each class averages 30 unique students. That means every year he teaches 150 students. Over 10 years, that’s 1500 students he’s taught. 20 students is 1% of that. You’re listening to the 1% of students who felt motivated enough to go onto RMP and rate him. Even if we took a professor who has only taught for 5 years (so relatively new, and not even tenured) who teaches 100 unique students a year, that’s still 500 students and 20 students is only 4% of that. Even 100 students would only be 20% of his total.</p>

<p>Besides, there is a lot of evidence to show that students’ ratings are correlated with their grades. If the student gets an F, they blame it on the professor (regardless of whether it was actually the professor’s fault, which in my experience it rarely is) and they give the professor a bad evaluation. IF the student gets an A, the professor gets a good evaluation. But the student who is satisfied with an A is much less likely to go on RMP than the student who gets a D and is outraged.</p>

<p>If you want to know the structure of a course ahead of time, you could always meet with a professor during office hours and ask to see the syllabus for the class or ask about the structure of the class. Sometimes professors change the structure if the old one was’t working, so the RMP reviews could be outdated.</p>

<p>I was also going to say exactly what @skieurope said. All professors speak English. Whether you can understand their accent is another question. But I assure you that thousands of students manage to do well in the classes of thousands of non-native speaking professors with accents. (And professors don’t get paid less because they speak English as a second language, so it’s not frugality. The tenure thing is closer, although that’s making the assumption that non-native English speakers are worse teachers because of their accents, which I think is wrong).</p>

<p>I have never had a professor tell me to “read the textbook.” Although I will say that if a professor does tell a student to “read the textbook,” perhaps it is because the student shows evidence of not having completed the reading?</p>

16

<p>Sorry, but I do not agree. I see alot of positive ratings for professors as well, so it is not all negative reviews. You cannot have it both ways. The bad ratings are not accurate, but the good ones are accurate. I do agree that you will always have some disgruntled students that want to vent. You will also have professors that will ask the A students to write a good evaluation. </p>

<p>As I was saying earlier, you cannot use RMP as gospel. You cannot plan your 4 year college career based on RMP, however, there are definitely times when there are 30 or 40 reviews and most of them are negative or postitive, that you really have to say, hey, this is an accurate assesment of that professor. Not all of the time, but many times it is accurate.</p>

<p>I have two nephews (not a scientific study by any stretch) that went to Geneseo and Cornell, and they said by in large that most, not all, but most of the ratings were fairly accurate. Even Mr or Miss Cornell student uses RMP.</p>

<p>By the way, you may never had a professor say, “read the book” but my friends have. There is a difference between a slacker, and a lazy professor. Yes, you should read the book, and you should take the initiative and read it before class if so inclined, but there are some professors that you really wind up teaching alot of the material yourself because they are lousy teachers. We all know that college is not grade school, and you will not be spoon fed, however, you are there to learn, not teach yourself calculus. That is why you are paying 25k-60k per yr on an education.</p>

<p>Some professors are there for research, not teaching. Teaching is the last thing on their mind. Sorry, but those are the facts. </p>

<p>Finally, with regard to the professors not speaking English. If you want to play the syntax game, yes, you are correct, they all speak English, however, if the accent is soooooo thick that they cannot pronounce the words, what good is it? Believe, me, I have had some professors that you simply cannot understand. It happens, trust me. If you want to be politically correct, ok that is your choice, but there are plenty of professors that have no business teaching. It is funny, the professor that is very picky on a test beacuse you may not show all of your work etc, is the same professor that should go to a linguistics course and speak the English language clearly so you as a student can understand the lecture. Now I ask you, is that too much to ask??</p>

17

<p>Father of RMP user here. D’s experience has taught her to avoid extreme high or low easiness scores and look for comments about students wanting to attend class or office hours. Those are good signs. With that in mind, her profs have been very accurately rated.</p>

<p>@WasatchWriter‌ accurate and helpful comments, thanks</p>

18

<p>I work at a university, but am not teaching faculty. I’ve looked at a lot of RMP profiles. The students who post are generally only those who either love or hate the professor. There isn’t much of a middle ground. As an aside, my university has gone to an online system for the official student evaluation forms, instead of paper forms done in class. As a result, the students have to be motivated enough to go in and do the evaluations on their own time. So, just like RMP, what we’ve seen is that the middle has fallen out of the curve, and we only get evaluations from students who either loved or hated the prof.</p>

<p>In my experience, the RMP ratings have much more to do with how challenging the course is than how good or bad the prof is. Many of our students want the classes to be easy and fun, and aren’t willing to be challenged. Instead of relying too much on RMP, I would try to find other students who have had a particular prof and discuss what they liked or disliked about the class.</p>

19

<p>Reading up on profs can help you make decisions on who to take a class with, but I agree with others that it most definitely should not be taken too seriously. Good reviews say more than the bad reviews. Usually bad reviews just mean that some people were salty over their poor grades and wanted to blame someone other than themselves. One of my professors had terrible reviews, and she has turned out to be my favorite. It’s in the eye of the beholder. </p>

20

<p>I agree to those saying that Rate My Professor is most accurate when:

  1. There are multiple reviews (as in between the upper 50’s and 100’s, depending on your school’s size)
  2. The instructor has been teaching for a good while
  3. The instructor teaches a large class or a general education class that caters to a wide variety of students </p>

<p>For example, for almost all my Gen Ed’s and lower level science classes (Gen Chem, Bio, etc.) the RMP reviews were extremely accurate almost 80% of the time. </p>

<p>However, as I’ve taken much higher level classes, the reviews have gotten more sparse and varied. For example, there is a teacher I am taking for my 300-level Genetics course who has only been an instructor for a couple years. I went on RMP and all the 5 measly reviews were negative, saying her tests were “impossible” and her teaching was “non-existent.” However, I’m about to finish the course and I thought her tests were a piece of cake and, while her clarity can be off, she gets some points across very well. </p>

<p>So generally, when it comes to new teachers, I tend to not trust the reviews as much because new teachers starting out will eventually change the way they teach and grade over time to improve. A few angry students who probably put little effort into the class and expected a good grade to be handed to them probably aren’t the best ones to trust either. </p>

<p>I think it is all about attitude, really. If you come into a class, solely depending on RMP and the teacher to get you the grade you want, you’re probably going to struggle more than if you have the initiative to adapt and teach yourself, then it doesn’t matter how hard, unclear, boring, or mean your teacher is, you can still do well. </p>