<p>There's obviously a lot of inflation in them, so a prof with an average rating of "good" here is often considered to be a "bad" professor at teaching according to what I hear from others . Anyways, a rating between "excellent" and "very good" corresponds to a "good professor" (according to what I hear from others)</p>
<p>I've noticed that I actually tend to get higher scores (relative to the mean) with bad professors. This is usually since I get most of my learning through self-study (as I don't absorb verbal info very well), so while my learning is fairly indifferent to how "good" a teacher is, the rest of the class isn't very indifferent to it (especially since a lot of students just take notes from lectures and dont study much outside of class). </p>
<p>But then it's hard to say. A prof can get really good ratings in upper div courses and low ratings in lower div courses. Some of the nicest profs I've known have weak ratings (maybe it's because other students don't want to talk to them so they are more available to the few remaining students?).</p>
<p>The easiest information comes from the super low ratings and super high ratings. Other than that though, it seems that prof quality is hard to predict.</p>