<p>I've never used it but I just imagine its biased like if someone passes they'll give a good rating.</p>
<p>I was looking at the website today but what's up with the 'hot' part? Does it mean the professor is popular & everyone takes his or her class, or they're very physically attractive!? I don't think the latter part is relevant.</p>
<p>And I don't know a lot of people who aren't freshmen so I cant ask who's a good professor to take.</p>
<p>I’ve found ratemyprof to be pretty reliable. I don’t think there’s a huge bias, but maybe it’s just the classes I’ve taken? A lot of the profs that I’ve searched up have accurate reviews from my experience. They tell you if the class is an easy A, if the teacher is good at their job, if the teacher’s nice, if this class is hard but you should still take it, etc.</p>
<p>Like, I’ve had pretty difficult classes with amazing teachers that work your butt off for an A. And on ratemyprof, the ratings generally agree, and would say something like “really harsh grader but she’s extremely helpful to those who ask. Passionate about her job… would recommend taking her, but you’ll need to work for the A in this class.” I’ve also had teachers that read straight from the book or just suck and aren’t helpful even if it is an easy A. Again, the ratings generally reflect that the class is an easy A but the teacher is very boring/sucks. </p>
<p>But, it could just be my school? lol</p>
<p>Thanks lullabies ツ
I tried to look up my current ones but only found 2 and one had only one review/rating. They’re kinda accurate.</p>
<p>Ratemyprofessor is a decent source to get the general feel for a class, especially the General Ed courses. This is what I’ve been using and it’s pretty reliable.</p>
<p>Ignore the ratings and just read the text.</p>
<p>That’s how I learned, for example, that the professor of the Genetics course I intend to take next semester is “very demanding, but you’ll KNOW genetics when you’re done.” That’s far more useful to me than comparing one prof’s 3.4 stars vs another’s 3.6, because I know exactly what to expect from the class: both a high degree of challenge and a high quality of teaching (hooray!).</p>
<p>You can’t reduce teaching to a few averaged metrics and expect to learn anything meaningful about a professor. However, you can certainly learn something by reading about someone’s direct experience of a professor’s teaching.</p>
<p>There’s some truth in every comment.</p>
<p>I think the comments helped but one professor has every comment as a negative 
</p>
<p>And I’ll be taking her next semester since that fits into my schedule.</p>
<p>I’ve found it to be pretty accurate for the most part. I take it all with a grain of salt though. I’m sure plenty of the reviews on there are based on the final grade that was received. But, it’s never really struck me as being horribly biased. </p>
<p>That said, asking people around campus is going to give you a much better idea of what to expect.</p>
<p>I’ve used rate my professor from day one and have also found it very accurate. Don’t take the ratings themselves at exactly face value though. You need to learn how to read into it, IMO. For example, you may compare a prof with an overall rating of 4.0 with 10 reviews and another prof with an overall rating of 3.5 but with 110 reviews. I put more weight to the ratings the more reviews there are. Next, I take a quick tally at how many reviews were recent (within last 2 years) and putting weight to those that have consistent reviews within that time frame (i.e. at least 1 or 2 reviews every few months or so, indicative of a new quarter or semester class). I also try to analyze the text in the review too, of course. If there’s a bad review that simply states “this prof sucks! don’t take him/her!” among a plethora of good reviews that do not say similar things, then it could be considered an outlier and biased from possibly receiving a bad grade. I have also made it my own rule of thumb to actually not take a class with a prof who does not have any reviews or has enough that I can count on one hand.</p>
<p>By placing my own kind of “judgement call” based on the analysis technique above, I’ve never gone wrong or had a “bad” professor. Quite often my experience with the prof is very similar to the reviews I’ve checked on rate my prof.</p>
<p>What really sucks is using it and signing up with a specific prof based on the reviews only to have the prof switched at the beginning of the term - to a prof that has horrible reviews! That happened to me once, but it worked out and I still got an A in the course.</p>
<p>One of the most useful things I found with the site is that sometimes reviewers can reveal valuable information about the structure of the course too, like if a prof allows for open note exams or if a group project is to be expected or even if there’s a textbook required (possibly saving money) and so on.</p>
<p>The more ratings/reviews a professor has, the more reliable it’s going to be.</p>
<p>Also, check if your university has its own resource. At the end of the semester at my university, students are strongly encouraged to fill out the TRACE survey and provide comments for the instructors in all of their classes. It’s a way more thorough resource than Rate My Professor, and it’s available to all students to see the reviews afterwards.</p>
<p>Honestly…ratemyprofessors is good and all. I use a different website that’s popular almost exclusively now, but it gets *** out if I try to type it. </p>
<p>Sometimes though…many of the reviewers are just dumb. I saw that my teacher went to Harvard, UC Berkeley, etc…yet no one liked her, no one wanted to take her, too much work, grades too harshly. I took her and got an A, learned a TON, and I think these people just wanted to not learn anything. I’m pretty sure people in addition to getting a job are supposed to come here to actually learn something…</p>
<p>Sometimes they have no reviews. You have to take a gamble. But yes, if you’re a smart student you’ll probably do well no matter what. I ended up taking one of the worst history teachers and although it is WAY more work than I would’ve thought possible for this one class, I’m learning something. As for my major, they’re pretty spot for upper-division classes. Just be wary of reviews on general education classes.</p>
<p>i find it to be reliable, i regret not looking at rtp, earlier before choosing classes this semester.</p>
<p>For the most part, it’s accurate. Sometimes you have someone who really hates the professor, but you can usually tell. </p>
<p>For example, I took a class with a professor who had a 4.5 overall rating and a couple reviews that said “this class was awful, too hard, and she expects too much work from you” whereas others said “the content of the class is hard but she’s genuinely kind and helpful and will help you navigate through it.” Clearly, the bad reviews were just based on the hard content, so the trick is to find consistency amongst the reviews (whether or not most people think they’re nice, if the course itself is hard, etc) and then go with your gut.</p>
<p>There are often ‘outlier’ reviews from people complaining about professors, but you can sort of tell who the sour grapes posters are. As someone said above, the more reviews the better the reliability will be, and you can learn a lot from the comments. It isn’t perfect, but it is a whole lot better than nothing!</p>
<p>And yes, to answer part of your original question, the chili pepper is about physical attractiveness. Which will probably matter more to some site users than others…</p>
<p>Ignore the reviews where the students complain about having to be there or actually read the book! Actually I think they’re pretty accurate as long as there are reviews from lots of different classes. I have noticed, especially with math teachers (may just be because that’s what D is looking at) that sometimes professors get low ratings in the introductory level classes but high marks for upper level class. So usually a smart professor who just doesn’t do well with beginners. If possible, look for reviews of the specific classes you are actually interested in, not all the classes he/she teaches.</p>
<p>I’ve found Rate my Professor to accurate the majority of the time, although there have been situations where my experience was the complete opposite of what was described in reviews. Just remember: one bad review is just a bitter student he didn’t do what he was supposed to, several bad reviews is indicative of possible incompetence on part of the professor.</p>
<p>I agree with the above comment. That being said, the obvious downside of the site is that comments can be posted anonymously. A professor could enter as many comments as they like about their own class if they had the inclination.</p>
<p>^ lol. This is true. </p>
<p>That brings up another interesting topic, though: do professors read what people say about them? </p>
<p>I’ve had one prof who directly said “as I’m sure you gathered if you read ratemyprofessors, blah blah blah,” but in general, I don’t know if I’d want to read stuff written about me if I were a professor. I know curiosity kills the cat, but still, it’s almost better off not knowing in some cases.</p>
<p>There is a section on RMP with professors that post responses. Some are pretty good.</p>
<p>I had an online class where one of the Rate My Professor comments was “I want him to have my babies.” Someone in the class found this and posted it in the class forum. Professor’s response: “Oh my.”</p>