<p>I am about to begin my Master's program at a brand new school.
I just received my list of new professors and ratemyprofessors.com has all rated them "poor quality".
I have no choice but to take all these professors in the fall. Since, I am brand new to this school, I am taking more stock in these comments.</p>
<p>Does anyone else use the comments of RMP.com to pick their classes or sections?</p>
<p>Should I not put so much faith into these comments?</p>
<p>Yeah, I check all the professors on ratemyprofessor.com before signing up for a class with them. In my experience, if a professor gets consistently poor ratings, he's usually a poor teacher. If he gets consistently positive ratings, he's usually a good teacher. If there's a good mix of ratings, he tends to have a quirky personality some love while others abhor. If there are only one or two comments on a professor, you can't draw any conclusion. This is just what I've noticed over the years.<br>
A better way to learn about a particular professor's performance is to check the student evaluation data. I don't know about other schools, but where I go one can go to the library and look up evaluations by students for every teacher for every class they taught in the past few years.</p>
<p>I disagree. Ratemyprofessor is normally utilized by undergraduates who are looking for easy undergraduate classes to take. Not as many graduate students use ratemyprofessor (I never have...and neither have any of my peers), so I'd take anything on that site with a grain of salt. Some professors put most of their teaching energy into graduate level classes. Of course, there is no catch all to figure out what the professors are like until you actually experience it and not all professors work in this fashion (but many do). Also, sometimes you learn the most out of the most difficult classes, I know I sure have!</p>
<p>And I disagree with you. Give us undergraduates enough credit to differentiate between a poor teacher and a good, demanding teacher. I don't know anyone who dislikes tough, but well taught classes.<br>
You saying that "Ratemyprofessor is normally utilized by undergraduates who are looking for easy undergraduate classes to take" is comparable to me saying "the internet is normally utilized by perverts who are looking for porn". The site has some very valuable information, but of course there are the students who use it to find the class they can slack off most in. This should not discredit the entire site.
I'm sure not many graduate students use the site because 1) graduate GPA is basically meaningless as long as you're above the minimum to remain in your program, and 2) their focus is on research. For us undergraduates, our education is entirely made up of classes, and we don't want to risk screwing our GPA by taking real analysis with Rahajathiritha Majunadrasidrandad whose words can be understood by no one.</p>
<p>I agree with ophiolite. There are certainly those who use ratemyprofessors.com as it should be used --- but I'd guess that the majority uses it to check whether their professor will grade easily. Also, the analogy that you used isn't really fit, since even if the internet was used mostly by perverts, that wouldn't harm the other users, while for ratemyprofessors.com, if the majority of users use it to look for easy classes, the ratings are very skewed and so become much less meaningful.</p>
<p>There is a difference between one who reads the site and one who posts. Those who exploit it typically aren't among those who contribute.</p>
<p>I use rate my professor all the time. It has been dead on for all of my classes. I am not looking for easy classes. I think it is better to make an informed decision. When I do have to take a "bad" teacher at least I am aware of what their pet peeves are and I can stay clear. Bad ratings usually means the teacher is not very good at teaching the subject or they are flat out rude and abusive towards their students (or both). Also slackers don't usually do that much research so I doubt many of them are going on there. As the above poster said they are not the type to come back and comment either.</p>
<p>As a clarifcation, I am a graduate student, and in my experience how a professor teaches undergraduates typically varies greatly of that of a graduate class. Two professors I have had as a graduate student have won University-wide prestigous teaching awards (and likely high ratings on websites since teaching awards are awarded by student evaulations here). Ironically, these were the worst professors I've had during my graduate career. Conversely, those professors typically thought by undergraduates to be the most difficult for intro courses have been the best teachers in my graduate courses. However, there are some that are still bad when teaching either (there are two of those in my current department). </p>
<p>Also, unless I'm mistaken, ratemyprofessor doesn't specify between undergraduate responses or graduate responses which doesn't give the user the opportunity to compare responses between student levels. Furthermore, graduate level classes typically have considerably less students in them than undergraduate level classes, so any responses from graduate students are likely overshadowed by that of undergraduate students. So, please keep an open mind until you get to school and have the opportunity to ask second year (or greater) students their opinions. Or better yet, don't form an opinion until after you take the class! You'll always do better in a class where you have no pre-conceived notions than when you do...</p>
<p>Feel free to disagree, but I'm entitled to my opinion.</p>
<p>My advice would be to read the comments carefully. They will tip you off as to the reasons for the rating. If a professor is rated highly and has lots of comments indicating he's great because he's an easy A, that's a bad sign. If it shows that the prof is rated badly because he's a tough grader, that's likely a good grad prof. Communication is often comented on as well. Don't go by the numbers, go by the comments.</p>
<p>My former Lit. mentor had horrible reviews on Rate my Professors. After I got to know her a bit, I learned it was because she assigned a lot of reading (for upper division lit. classes) and gave detailed tests and small writing assignments. So, go figure.</p>
<p>I like Rate my Professors, but sometimes you have to draw your own conclusion about things. If I went by Rate my Professors, I never would have known my former Lit.mentor (who unfortunately had a stroke). </p>
<p>I figure that as long as the comments are not horid, then you should take the prof.</p>
<p>I haven't found those ratings very useful, in part because many professors have only one or two reviews, and in part because many reviewers only check the boxes and don't explain their reasons.</p>
<p>The site structure is flawed, also: it has a ridiculously low character limit in the comment box which caps student explanations at about two sentences. This sound-byte approach means that reviewers tend to leave messages along the lines of "The class is boring and he's a jerk," or "She's awesome!" Gimmicks like being made to rate the professor's "hotness" may discourage serious students from posting. </p>
<p>Ophiolite is right about the difference between graduate and undergraduate focus. Non-majors and young undergrads are often turned off by professors with a narrow research focus, calling them boring. Their narrow specialization, however, often makes them the best mentors for student research (either upper-division undergrads or graduate students).</p>
<p>That site does allow you to list what course you had the professor for, so (assuming someone does that) you can tell if there is a difference between how they teach undergrad and grad courses. </p>
<p>Also, try this:</p>
<p>From <a href="https://www.pickaprof.com/?hid=77.85%5B/url%5D">https://www.pickaprof.com/?hid=77.85</a></p>
<p>"Pick-A-Prof Member Services Grade Histories: Only Pick-A-Prof shows you the number of A-F's professors historically give - straight from the official university records. For Example, if you are interested in taking a Math course, Pick-A-Prof will tell you who is teaching it next semester and what they historically give in that course."</p>
<p>I've found that RMP is usually garbage for my professors, and that's just distinguishing between lower division and upper division. Then again, since I'm a math major, all my professors are typically getting rated on how they teach calculus, which doesn't help me</p>
<p>To the OP:</p>
<p>Since you don't have a choice, don't stress about the quality of your professors. If they suck, you're screwed no matter what RMP says, so why worry about how accurate RMP is? You can, however, use this semester to get a feel for what your choices are like next semester, when you'll actually have to make a choice</p>
<p>I'll tell y'all a secret about RMP. They were sold a while ago to some web site called MTVU. That is not a secret, but what I am about to say is...</p>
<p>Since about December or so, they have not had anything going on at all. Nada. The folks behind that site are waiting for some big swap over. So, since about December, it has been total anarchy over at RMP. I could, if I were mean, make a rating comparing one of my professors to a baboon's hiney and that rating would go through. And their forum is kinda like the opposite of how this site is organised and I do not really recommend it at all. </p>
<p>Just recently, like on Friday I think it was, they finally let the site administrators back online. They all have a lot of work and the University administrators may or may not even be called back fully to their volunteer positions. I do not know. All I am saying is that I hope whoever reads this takes RMP with a big grain of salt for right now.</p>