<p>I feel really bad about this but I looked up one of my professors and he seemed to have a record of teaching the material too slow, so I switched into a less interesting class taught by a really well-rated professor who supposedly makes the class a lot more interesting and relevant than might be expected. </p>
<p>Since I now have to get a new and possibly more expensive book (bought the old one on a gift certificate and will sell it for mostly the same price), was it worth it? I probably shouldn't make decisions based on a site, but I really don't think I could handle yet another boring class in my schedule with a professor that keeps us behind in labs.</p>
<p>In general, highly rated professors will be good professors, and lowly rated professors may be either good or bad...
It tends to be that people who have complaints post more online, usually because they flunked or something, so when there is a good rating it is usually accurate (unless this professor decides to go rate himself...).</p>
<p>i'm taking a prof who is said to give practice tests that are nearly identical to the actual test, but he grades very hard. Some people will like that, others won't. </p>
<p>generally just look for consistent reviews (ex: gives good notes) and you'll get the idea.</p>
<p>yeah, I did focus more on the comments than the actual rating. Although there weren't a ton for this particular class, they were consistent about the teacher wandering off topic a lot and thus the class falling behind all the other lecture classes. Since I'm not good at labs, this was the part that really discouraged me from staying. And some of the comments really seemed to be without malice, saying the teacher is smart and everything but just not good :(.</p>
<p>I guess I can always take the class with a different teacher another semester if I really want... but it won't fill any requirements by then.</p>
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And I had a teacher who tried to get us to rate her well on ratemyprofessor for extra points.
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<p>LOL that's clever.</p>
<p>As cbpeanut mentioned, those who are bitter are more likely to post online, so be aware of negative comments. Focus on the positives. I don't think you should feel bad for switching classes, you used all the resources you have.</p>
<p>its all relative and u should take it with a grain of salt
dont be scared and think that the negative comments are all true. stay in the class and see for urself what that teacher is like and see if that correlates to what people on ratemyprofessors said</p>
<p>I know this is an awful way to pick classes, but ratemyprofessors.com is usually accurate on whether or not the professor giving boring or animated lectures. For straight-forward, quantitative ratings, I use my school's prof evaluations website. I think they're less relative and biased.</p>
<p>In my experience, it seems to be pretty accurate for me. Though occasionally you'll find a teacher you really liked and thought was a good professor got a low rating and vise versa.</p>
<p>you need to remember that there are students out there 1) not as intelligent as you 2) way more intelligent than you, and that they are all posting their opinions. it's not standardized, that's why you have to tread carefully when reading those comments. </p>
<p>someone who's best subject is math could be saying "oh this calc teacher is a breeze, do take it" while another person who sucks at math is going "OMFG! I NEVER UNDERSTOOD ANYTHING, PLZ DON'T TAKE THIS TEACHER". for you, it could be good OR bad. i've taken teachers with horrible ratings on ratemyprof and found them great. i've taken teachers with GREAT ratings and they SUCKED. i've found it's easier to ask around your campus from upperclassman about your future profs, lol</p>
<p>I think it depends on how many posts. If you have a professor that has a bad rating, but only got like 2 reviews, then you won't really know. On the other hand, a lot of reviews tend to be much more accurate. I took a physics professor that had the highest ratings(i.e hot chile pepper) with over 20+ pages of reviews. It turned out to be very accurate and I was very satisfied with my education.</p>
<p>Only people with extreme feelings will post. If you see a prof who has a good number of ratings, you can be sure that the prof is either really good or really bad. If you see a prof with very little ratings, chances are he/she is somewhere in the middle (in some cases the prof is new).</p>
<p>I guess you're just not representative of the average rater on the site :)</p>
<p>Do notice that most comments are either "he's so tough! he'll yell at you for being stupid!", or "this prof is an excellent teacher and an easy marker too!"</p>
<p>We hired two professors and they generally agreed with how they were rated on rmp. My son says that the ratings are generally good after you throw out the outliers.</p>
<p>well thanks everyone for giving me your opinions on the ratings; I feel like I should have stayed in the other class now but I'm not going to switch back because I think my new class is better for my schedule (1 instead of twice a week, leaving my Wed. almost totally open). Plus, I think it's worth trying out a professor with 11 pages of really good ratings; I don't usually like science classes so a passionate/interesting instructor is a big plus.</p>