Rate My Professors: Use with caution

Unless you've been living under a rock, chances are that you have heard of Rate My Professors. If not, it's a website that lets you search, read, and write reviews about professors at your college. Professors can be reviewed for their overall quality of their teaching, helpfulness, clarity, and how easy their classes are. You can even review if professors are hot.

This may seem like an awesome tool for first generation and low income college students when it comes to class selection. I know some students who swear by Rate My Professors and will try to take classes with only highly rated professors, the easiest professors, or the hottest professors.

Photo credit: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/

But, if you choose to use this website, make sure you use Rate My Professors with caution. Here are a few things to keep in mind when using Rate My Professors or other similar websites or services:

Don't be a sheep. One thing you should always be wary of as a college student is information. Make sure that you consider how credible the source is and think about it critically instead of accepting the reviews as absolute truth.

Where is it coming from? Think about who is likely to write reviews. Students who really hated or really loved a particular professor are more likely to post comments than students who weren't strongly swayed one way or the other. Also, students who are disappointed with their grades and don't take ownership of their grades are more likely to leave negative reviews.

Everyone is different. What some students finds difficult can come easily for other students, so take others' recommendations with a grain of salt. Just because a bunch of students think a professor is easy or hard doesn't mean you will think the same thing.

Is there a match? Sometimes its a matter of professors' teaching styles versus students' learning styles. If they don't match, students tend to rate professors negatively. Whether or not you would succeed in a professor's class is about how well your learning style matches the professor's teaching style, not how well the professor's style matches other students.

Look for specifics. Vague reviews like "This dude sux!!!!!" or "I wish he was my grandpa." are not actually that helpful to you. Make sure you look for specific ways that the professor may or may not be a good fit for you. A review like "He tends to be a little hard on his students though, and the midterm scores are usually pretty low, so try your best. Otherwise he is very willing to help, is great at explaining material, and encourages you to think for yourself and practice lots of problems" can give you a much better idea about what the professor would actually be like in class.

Don't just crunch numbers. The ratings can seem useful at first glance, but chances are that you will gain more useful information from also reading the reviews. Sometimes you'll see a highly rated professor with lousy write-ups and vice versa, so don't just rely on one source.

More than meets the eye. If all you are looking for is a hot professor, I suspect your grades aren't as strong as they could be. Plus, most of the "hot" professors do not have pictures posted to back up the review. It can be nice to have an eye-candy worthy professor, as long as it doesn't distract you from your job as a student.

So, there you have it. Rate My Professors can be a useful tool, but only when you use it with caution.

Got questions? Please feel free to ask The Advisor about it.