OPINION: Why you should RateMyProfessors.com

When the upcoming semester schedule is released, students rush to a computer to see who’s teaching the classes they need to take with a bookmarked tab locked and loaded on RateMyProfessors.com. 

Rate My Professors is a website designed for college students to rate their professors and give their personal opinion on the course and the professor.

“I’m in love with this genius website,” said Ali Sheridan, 20, communications. “I use it all the time, it’s definitely bookmarked on my computer. I love that I can get an idea of the classes I’m considering to take.”

This sometimes helpful site can help make your final decision on whether you should take that applied biology class with Professor Jones. Keyword “sometimes” because some students end up disappointed, caught between what they read on the website and the reality of the actual class once enrolled.

“It’s ‘buyer beware’ obviously but what I noticed because of the anonymity students can say anything about you, good or bad,” stated Professor Marry Mariano, English composition.

Ratings are interesting to read because of the way Rate My Professors is set up. According to the website, they have 8,000 schools and over 15 million entirely student-generated comments and ratings, and it is the highest trafficked free site for quickly researching and rating 1.7 million professors from colleges and universities across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It lets students rate the easiness, overall quality, and hotness of the professor teaching the course.

Being able to describe your experience and share your opinion of a professor you have taken could be very helpful to other students who happen to prefer certain teaching techniques. Some students like myself, happen to  know the type of learners they are, visual or auditory, and Rate My Professors can be helpful in a sense of getting to know your potential professor and how they run their classes. 

“I use it every time I register for classes and always read the past comments about a teacher. If the overall quality is below 3.2 I won’t take their class,” said Danielle Salhus, 21, anthropology.

In all honesty the comments from students do help me make the decision if I should enroll in a course. I’m sure students besides myself have learned to not overlook the comments and scroll through the front webpage until you see the “overall quality” rating next to the professors name, spending at least a few minutes to read all the comments given by students is what RateMyProfessors.com was designed for.