Online sites offer students a way to check up on a prof’s performance

Forrest Gump might say scheduling classes is like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re gonna get.

Or rather, whom.

Luckily for students, there are Web sites like RateMyProfessors.com and PickAProf.com, which allow students to leave anonymous reviews of their professors that other students can read.

PickAProf.com also includes information about what grades the professor gave and the results of course evaluations.

For Chelsea Crooks, sophomore Spanish and marketing major, seeing what grades professors gave students helped her pick her classes this semester.

“It helped me pick my English professor,” she said. “I saw most of the students had As and Bs.”

RateMyProfessors.com doesn’t have information about what grades the professor gave, but it allows students to rate professors on several qualities and leave comments.

Sarah Machol, freshman fashion merchandising major, said she looked at RateMyProfessors.com after getting her schedule so she would know what to expect of the professors she had.

“They got bad ratings, but I didn’t change my class,” Machol said. “They gave (one of my professors) low ratings, but the comments they left were pretty accurate.”

Crooks said the grades were more helpful than the comments students left.

“The beneficial thing is how they graded students,” Crooks said. “A lot of people left, like, four-star reviews.”

But not every review is a good review. Many of the comments left on RateMyProfessors.com are quite negative:

“Imagine the cruelest person you’ve ever met. Multiply that by 100, and you have (name withheld). For some strange reason, she believes that tearing students down is a good method to help them learn. Wrong, (name withheld). Wrong,” which was left about a journalism professor.

Some reviews actually contradict others. Student reviews of one biology professor run the gamut from: “I HATE HIM!!!!!” to “Second best professor I have ever had. Challenging, but fair. He will get you ready for graduate school.”

Mariah Regan, sophomore Spanish and management major, said she would look at the overall picture and not let one reviewer be the deciding factor for her.

“If I just saw one bad review, I wouldn’t not take” the class, Regan said.

Crooks agreed.

“If there were 50 students who had a bad experience and didn’t enjoy the class, I wouldn’t take it,” Crooks said. “But a couple, that’s no reason not to take it.”

Contact technology reporter Meranda Watling at [email protected].