Check Out Your Professors!

RateMyProfessors.com is the Internet’s largest listing of collegiate professor ratings. Online since 1999, it contains more than 8 million student-generated ratings of over 1 million professors from over 6,000 colleges and universities across the United States, Canada, England, Scotland and Wales. Thousands of new ratings are added each day, and even local community colleges are included. College students can go to the site and rate current and past professors on attributes such as easiness, helpfulness and clarity. Students can also use the site to help plan their class schedules, by looking at how other students have rated a certain professor. Each professor gets a name, subject, overall smiley symbol (good, average, poor), quality rating (1-5), ease (1-5) and whether they’re “hot” or not. Some ratings may be good, some may be bad, and some might be so-so. Keep in mind that the ratings all just personal opinions, so always take the ratings with a grain of salt. The main criticism of RateMyProfessors is that the ratings don’t necessarily accurately reflect the quality of the professors rated. Nevertheless, the detailed comments can be a useful resource when considering whether or not to take a particular class, by providing clues as to how strict the professor is, how much homework he or she gives, what his or her personality is like, etc. You know you’ve got a winner when you see multiple positive statements such as “amazing teacher” and “this class changed my life.” If you’ve had a great professor, do them a favor and leave your comments at RateMyProfessors.com.