Rate My Professor/Teacher: Helpful or Not?

So, for those who don't know, Rate My Prof is, essentially, a very useful site. But you kind of need to take it with a grain of salt. The site gives students the opportunity to rate and review the professors they've had and leave tips from their experience in their class. Which is great if you are a student going into the class and want to know what to expect. It also gives students a chance to back out of classes where the teacher or professor may not be the best, or may just have a teaching style that will not benefit the student.

However, this is not always the case. As with any site that can be edited or added to by anyone, there are times where what is said isn't true. Anyone can go post a rating, whether they have been in the class or not. Also, there is always the possibility students who did poorly in the class will give Professors a bad review out of anger. However, if the reviews are consistently bad, then you might actually consider it an issue.

I am going to pull some examples from the site to show you what I'm talking about.

An example of an Electrical Engineering Professor:

Overall: 2/5 Helpful: 2/5 Clarity: 2/5 Easiness: 2.4/5

Ratings: 44

"Very rude and condescending to students. Not helpful at all."

"He expects you to read his mind, gives impractical tests, puts students down."

"THE MOST UNRESPECTABLE INDIVIDUAL I've ever met, totally lacks the integrity of a professor. Think twice before you go to his office hours, he seems to have the weird view that office hours are for humiliating his students who are 40 academic years his junior."

So, you wouldn't want to take his class if you could get away with it. Since most of the reviews were consistent, it wasn't just a few bad eggs who were upset about their grades. While a few ratings were 'average' as opposed to 'poor', none were higher. So, no one truly felt like they benefitted from the class. This would be helpful to students who looked at entering this person's class that might be better off taking it with someone else.

An example of a Psychology Professor:

Overall: 5/5 Helpful: 5/5 Clarity: 5/5 Easiness: 4.2/5

Ratings: 12

"________is probably the nicest prof I have ever had! She does a great job of turning a dull subject into something interesting. Easy assignments and lectures, tests are a bit harder but nothing too bad if you study for them. ____ is always available to help you too. "

"She is so kind and is always prepared for her lectures. She was very effective at teaching and kept you engaged the entire class, which in turn helps you do well on exams."

"She is young, energetic and really passionate about psychology. She keept classes entertaining with videos and good examples! She is always available to help and cares about her students. Tests were fair (multiple choice and written). "

From the reviews this seems like a good professor to have. All her reviews were good and had consistent things to say about her (inconsistency is always a good thing to look for because it could mean fake reviews, but also could mean that the professor teaches different courses in different ways). They also talk some about what classes, labs, and tests will be like so future students will have a better idea of what to expect.

An example of a Mathematics Professor:

Overall: 4.1/5 Helpful: 4.2 Clarity: 4 Easiness: 2.8

Ratings: 103

"______ spends all class on really easy questions and expects everyone to understand the complex ones that she doesn't teach. She is not helpful and moves really slowly! Terrible professor." (C)

"______ was great at explaining concepts and her notes were great for reference. Very fair midterms and finals and she pulled no surprises."(A-)

"Found she taught concepts well but tests were trickier. Go in for help. I didnt."

This might be harder for someone to interpret. Overall, the professor has fairly good marks, however her reviews range from 'good' to 'poor'. This may not be the best example for trying to show the "bad eggs" that sometimes find their way on the site, but it does work as an example about teaching style. If you are looking at this class as someone who struggles with math, then the fact that it is rated 2.8 for easiness, and many people struggled, is a good sign you should find a different class. However, if you are good at math or willing to work at it and go in for help, then you will probably be fine in this class.

Here is one that could possibly be a "bad egg":

"Horrible teacher...Talks way too much about irrelevant things, like about her life which no one cares about. In general, just horrible. Thinks she is funny but not. she is not the best looking professor. under qualified."

This professor has mixed reviews as well, but some are unnecessarily harsh. Like this one, that brought into account her appearance and criticized her sense of humor. And while not everything she says is funny (I have taken this professor) she is just trying to keep students engaged. It is a three hour lecture, if she only talked about the material the reviews would say she was boring and they couldn't stay focused. Sometimes, you just can't win.

Now, I touched on some of the good things about RateMyProf, so now is time to talk about the bad things. Let's start with the part of the review that I left out.

If you have seen the site, then you know that they ask for reviews about more than just easiness, helpfulness, and clarity. They also have a "hotness" option, here are some reviews from "hot" profs:

"He's super hot so that encourages class attendance."

"If there was a nuclear holoaust, the only survivors would be cockroaches and his tests. However, if you go to office hours, you get to bask in his amazingly good looks, which makes the class somewhat worth taking."

"She is a babe."

I'm honestly a little surprised I couldn't find more. I think that the site's administrators are doing more moderating of comments. I mean, they won't know if you were really a student but they can at least keep the really offensive ones from going through.

I just find this part some what pointless and kind of offensive, but before I go off on a tangent I want to make sure I talk about RateMyTeacher.

To this point I haven't really talked about RateMyTeacher, mostly because it seems sort of pointless. RateMyTeacher is for high school (and some go lower) teachers, but that doesn't seem as helpful. From what I remember about picking classes in high school, you had very little, if any, say in who you took classes with. I mean, some schools barely give you the choice of what classes you will be taking.

And even if you had a say, you don't know who the teacher will be until you are in the class already and then you would have to tell your guidance counselor why you want to change, and they're not going to let you change just because some website says the teacher isn't great.

So, RateMyTeacher seems pointless to me. You can't really use it for any real aid, and it mostly seems like mean students who did poorly signing on. It also isn't well-maintained. I mean, the same school has the same teacher two or three times with last name but no first name, last name and first name but one is spelled wrong, then actual last name and first name. So, how is that helpful?

Here are some high school teacher reviews (not one teacher, multiple):

"About as exciting as my mom while she's watching tv." (English)

"To much talked to students n didn't get answer very well." (Math)

"Goes off topic way too often, doesn't do anything valuable with class time and never marks assignments on time. She is completly rude." (History and Law)

"__________ is a loser. Keep talking about your stupid [redacted] stories or how you farted in college you old fart. My tutor taught me better things about Math 12 than you, you clueless imbecile." (Math)

So, you can see how these can be offensive, right? Especially the last one. And I have taken all these teachers, so I actually know what their classes were like. The first was one of my favorite teachers. The second, so not true! If she was talking to her students, it is because they ASKED FOR HELP and she was giving it to them. Third, she did go off topic from time to time, but we learned everything we needed to and I didn't think she was rude. I mean, she didn't let people treat her like a doormat. So, when students didn't put in any effort then acted like they were entitled to an A, she wasn't afraid to tell them off. But, I don't think she ever crossed the line to rude. (However, it does say that she picked favorites, so maybe I didn't get to see the 'rude' side of her.)

As for the fourth...well...I did NOT enjoy his class. I cannot say that the post is entirely inaccurate either. He did spend a lot of time telling stories, rather than teaching. I also had to get a math tutor just to get through his class. However, as hard and tedious as I found his class, name calling is just impolite and uncalled for.

So, really...you can see how bad this can be.

And I recently found a blog post on someone else's site where they confessed that their friend, who was also a teacher, cried after reading some of the reviews. And so this teacher went on her friend's page and added positive reviews to cheer their friend up.

Now, I feel bad for the teacher, I really do. I mean, my dad is a professor and his reviews aren't always positive (though, rarely are they bad either) and I feel upset for him. So, I get it. But, if the reviews were consistent enough that someone had to add positive ones to raise her rating, it might be a sign she has some things to improve on. She could take what they say to help her become a better teacher. Fake reviews might make her feel better but they won't help anyone. It won't help students who look her up and it won't help her improve.

And the blogger wrote that her friend tried hard and was a good teacher, but as her friend she is biased. I think my friends are absolutely friggin' awesome geniuses who will rule the world in their field, but that doesn't really make it true. Unless she is in the room every day as a student, she can't fairly claim how good of a teacher her friend is. And just because she tries hard doesn't mean she is good.

If there were only one or two bad reviews for ten good ones and she was still so upset (even though people clearly liked her), then really she needs to learn to toughen up a little bit. People can suck sometimes. Sticks and stones and the like. And adding positive reviews still won't help, because the few negative ones will probably still make her cry anyway. (Sorry if that seems rude, but if she is that easily offended then she might not be a very good teacher. Because, if she is so concerned with what people think, then she might not be pushing students to do better or leading the class properly because she is too afraid of stepping on toes or being disliked.)

If you read the ones I posted earlier and came across one like this surrounded by ten positive ones, you can tell it is a biased party, so if she still got upset even a million positive ones probably won't make her feel better about the two negative ones.

Which is what the first two teacher ratings I posted were, they were the one negative one surrounded by like ten positive ones. The third was more fifty-fifty, and the last one was mostly negative. So, you can see when people are just causing a fuss versus actually making a legitimate claim.

Maybe if all the students are saying her tests are too hard or she talks too fast, she can see about touching base with her students more before tests or talk slower. If they're saying that they don't understand, she can try a new approach. Feedback, both good and bad, is important when you are trying to improve.

Also, in some ways posting positive ones could have another negative effect in that people who aren't smart enough to tell the difference between the two will no longer be weeded out of the class.

RateMyProf has negative comments like this as well. But I really do think, or at least I hope, that the negative ones can be used for improvement and the positive ones can be used to boost self-esteem. (Of course, not taking into account the offensive ones that are uncalled for.)

I do think that the "hotness" rating should be taken down. When I was first looking at the site, I found some reviews that were really offensive. Like 'I only took the class 'cause the prof was hot' or 'the class sucked so I just went to stare at the teacher's *ss". And while these comments will continue regardless, I feel like having it as an option to be rated on the site encourages this attitude. If taken down, I think the comments will decrease.

And to end the post with one review that made me laugh, "This teacher was a firecracker in a pond of slithery tadpoles." Oh, snap!