How best to utilize "rate my professor" information?

[cintinative]

As you have used this resource, what are some tips you have for how to interpret comments?

Do you look only at the comments for the course your dc plans to take?  

What if the comments are equally negative and positive? How do you discern when a commenter was just not studying enough (if it isn't obvious)?

What comments are always red flags for you?

If you have the choice of an unknown professor (not yet in rate my professor) or one with 50/50 ratings (maybe a 3 out of 5), which do you choose? Why?

Thanks in advance!

[BusyMom5]

Do you know anyone who has taken the course with the professor?  That's the best source IMO because you can ask more nuanced questions- does he grade fairly?  Timely?  How is Communication if you had a problem?  Was the book easy to follow?  Do tests cover what was in the book?  

Google for a class syllabus from each professor,  many are posted online!  This will help you see the requirements for the class,  how grades are determined,  etc.

Depending on the course- some courses are just harder and will have more negative reviews.  Take Chemistry for example- its usually a harder class,  no matter who teaches it.  Many will take it who aren’t prepared.  I try to find relevant info in the reviews themselves rather than the overall score.  

Red Flags I look for, some are to do with my students- professor was hard to understand, not available during office hours, papers were not graded in a timely manner, tests make up the whole grade, syllabus not posted or not clear, heavy curve at the end of class (goal is to learn, not stress over poor grades, just to curve at the end), canceling classes frequently. 

I can say that my two have had professors that did all of those Red Flags, and while annoying, they still passed the classes. We try, but sometimes there aren't a lot of choices.  My DD2 just made her freshman schedule and by that time the only options for A&P were an 8AM with a professor with decent reviews, and 2 other classes with a professor with reviews we found concerning.   She went with the 8AM.... but she also gets up early.

[KSera]

3 hours ago, cintinative said:

As you have used this resource, what are some tips you have for how to interpret comments?

Do you look only at the comments for the course your dc plans to take?  

What if the comments are equally negative and positive? How do you discern when a commenter was just not studying enough (if it isn't obvious)?

What comments are always red flags for you?

If you have the choice of an unknown professor (not yet in rate my professor) or one with 50/50 ratings (maybe a 3 out of 5), which do you choose? Why?

Thanks in advance!

We use it heavily, and have almost always found our student’s experience to be reflected by the comments. We ignore negative comments about having to attend class to get good grades or having to read the textbook to do well on the tests and other comments that generally indicate someone was mad they had to work for their grade. But if there are lots of comments about disorganized, unclear expectations, doesn’t grade in a timely manner, rude and degrading to students, we pay attention to those. 

[catz]

23 minutes ago, KSera said:

We use it heavily, and have almost always found our student’s experience to be reflected by the comments. We ignore negative comments about having to attend class to get good grades or having to read the textbook to do well on the tests and other comments that generally indicate someone was mad they had to work for their grade. But if there are lots of comments about disorganized, unclear expectations, doesn’t grade in a timely manner, rude and degrading to students, we pay attention to those. 

This is exactly how we've used rate my professor.  It's  a super helpful tool.  I wish more students would take the time to do reviews!

[Kassia]

47 minutes ago, KSera said:

We use it heavily, and have almost always found our student’s experience to be reflected by the comments. We ignore negative comments about having to attend class to get good grades or having to read the textbook to do well on the tests and other comments that generally indicate someone was mad they had to work for their grade. But if there are lots of comments about disorganized, unclear expectations, doesn’t grade in a timely manner, rude and degrading to students, we pay attention to those. 

Same.  If there were consistent complaints about things in KSera's  last sentence then we tried to avoid.  

We've seen excellent professors with high expectations get lousy reviews because students were mad that they actually had to work hard for a good grade so we definitely passed over those kinds of reviews.  

 

[klmama]

My older dc used it extensively, and the comments accurately reflected what they experienced.  Everyone has different preferences, so the score isn't the important part; the details in the comments are.  A diligent student who is a slow reader may prefer professors who get comments about not needing the textbook and complaints about having to attend class and take good notes to be successful.  Even taking a course from a prof with truly terrible reviews can be made easier for having been forewarned by comments on ratemyprofessors.com.  If a professor is new, that doesn't mean there aren't comments listed under some other school -- just search by name, rather than school.  

[EKS]

Keep in mind that in general the students who rate the professors either love them or they hate them.  Of those who hate them, most of the time it's because the student themselves is a dumb a$$ (as my son would say).

That said, if you see the same sorts of comments about specific behaviors repeated again and again, there is (in our experience) always something to them. 

[cintinative]

Here is a for example. One prof had two reviews. One said "she is the best teacher i ever had."  The other said, "She was not good at time management. Instead of teaching students she just post you tube videos. I never had the chance to evaluate her because she kept her evaluations early. She made me lose points in class when it wasn't my fault but a problem with her questions. She is unnecessarily mean and insensitive. She contradicts herself."  

I am skeptical a tiny bit of the second one, but I could be wrong? Thoughts?

[KSera]

3 minutes ago, cintinative said:

Here is a for example. One prof had two reviews. One said "she is the best teacher i ever had."  The other said, "She was not good at time management. Instead of teaching students she just post you tube videos. I never had the chance to evaluate her because she kept her evaluations early. She made me lose points in class when it wasn't my fault but a problem with her questions. She is unnecessarily mean and insensitive. She contradicts herself."  

I am skeptical a tiny bit of the second one, but I could be wrong? Thoughts?

I’d pay attention to whether the reviews differ for in person vs online classes. We found that there were a couple teachers who had been really good in person who had terrible online courses (often just using YouTube videos and no actual instruction from them). 

[EKS]

8 minutes ago, cintinative said:

I am skeptical a tiny bit of the second one, but I could be wrong? Thoughts?

I'd flag that one as being from one of the above mentioned dumb a$$es.

[idnib]

We've only done a couple of cc professors, but DS and I found them to not be very accurate. We've talked about how profs probably read them too for feedback and perhaps make adjustments.

[cintinative]

14 minutes ago, KSera said:

I’d pay attention to whether the reviews differ for in person vs online classes. We found that there were a couple teachers who had been really good in person who had terrible online courses (often just using YouTube videos and no actual instruction from them). 

They are both listed as online classes, but I definitely know what you mean!

[Bootsie]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

Keep in mind that in general the students who rate the professors either love them or they hate them.  Of those who hate them, most of the time it's because the student themselves is a dumb a$$ (as my son would say).

Yes, you are usually getting the students who either love or hate a professor who take the time to do this.  I think it also varies from school-to-school how often students use rate-my-professor.  I have taught over 2500 students at the school where I currently teach and I have ONE review on rate-my-professor associated with this school.  This school has a closely connected student body and lots of info about classes is discussed among students. 

At a previous school where I taught, I have almost 70 reviews on rate-my-professor--but some are for classes I never taught and some for classes with dates several years after I taught there.

[mom2scouts]

I live in a University community and in my experience Rate My Professor is a good resource. If the rating is low and most of the comments are negative, that's a professor you should avoid whenever possible. If the rating is high and most comments are positive, you'll usually have a good experience with that professor. When they're evenly divided, the professor is usually fine but not great and you get the people who complain because they don't want to work and the people who had higher expectations. I agree with the other poster who said red flags are comments about professors who aren't willing to spend time helping students (don't grade work, aren't available for office hours, expectations aren't clear, rude to students). There was a professor I had 30+ years ago in his first year teaching who was so bad that I went to the department dean with a complaint letter signed by the entire class. For some reason he's still there teaching and his Rate My Professor ratings are horrible with the same complaints I had decades ago. There's a professor that DS has who is a very hard grader, but she's gone out of her way to help him and her ratings are high, but say she's a hard grader. My neighbor, a math professor, has ratings that say he's a nice guy who tries to help students, but he's a math genius and doesn't understand why anyone would have trouble. I've known him for years and have a family member who took his class and know the ratings are absolutely correct.

[JazzyMom]

We have used RMP with good results so far.  One thing to pay attention to is complaints about late grading.  I saw those on the reviews for my kid’s most recent prof.  Didn’t realize it was a big problem, but it did end up hurting ds’ grade, unfortunately. 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

On 5/18/2023 at 10:20 AM, cintinative said:

As you have used this resource, what are some tips you have for how to interpret comments?

Do you look only at the comments for the course your dc plans to take?  

What if the comments are equally negative and positive? How do you discern when a commenter was just not studying enough (if it isn't obvious)?

What comments are always red flags for you?

If you have the choice of an unknown professor (not yet in rate my professor) or one with 50/50 ratings (maybe a 3 out of 5), which do you choose? Why?

Thanks in advance!

We looked for trends across multiple ratings.

Did several people say the class was disorganized, that grading was delayed, that the professor was hard to reach or understand.

If it's just 1-2 saying that the class was hard, I take that with a grain of salt.

[bibiche]

In addition to RMP, you can see if the school has course evaluation reports available. These would probably only be available to matriculated students. Another resource is Facebook parent groups from that school. It’s astounding how involved parents are in their students undergraduate careers! I’ve definitely received good info on profs and courses from some of these parents.

[regentrude]

On 5/18/2023 at 2:18 PM, cintinative said:

Here is a for example. One prof had two reviews. One said "she is the best teacher i ever had."  The other said, "She was not good at time management. Instead of teaching students she just post you tube videos. I never had the chance to evaluate her because she kept her evaluations early. She made me lose points in class when it wasn't my fault but a problem with her questions. She is unnecessarily mean and insensitive. She contradicts herself."  

I am skeptical a tiny bit of the second one, but I could be wrong? Thoughts?

Two reviews are too few data points to draw meaningful conclusions.
I am skeptical of rating #2 because:
"Made me lose points" is a red flag.  
"kept her evaluations early" What does that even mean? Every college has a certain period in which evals happen, and the prof does not determine when that is.
"unnecessarily mean and insensitive". I had comments like that (in the same class where students raved about me being the most caring prof they ever had). It can mean the prof is matter-of-fact and tells the student when an answer is wrong, or that they need to read the textbook.

[regentrude]

On 5/18/2023 at 2:24 PM, KSera said:

I’d pay attention to whether the reviews differ for in person vs online classes. We found that there were a couple teachers who had been really good in person who had terrible online courses (often just using YouTube videos and no actual instruction from them). 

Keep in mind that any professor who shines in the classroom and gets strong ratings because of their enthusiasm and inspiring personality will be at a disadvantage if they have to teach an asynchronous online class where they cannot interact with students in person - no matter how good the online class is.

I teach the exact same class in person and as asynchronous online course. I recorded and produced all my own videos; they contain the exact same material, the exact same example problems. I say the same things in person and on video. The students in both sections have identical assignments and take identical exams. All students have in-person recitations and access to ten hours of in-person help-sessions per week. However, my ratings between the in-person and online sections differ by at least 0.5 (on a scale of 4); the online section consistently rates lower.
We have also done extensive analysis of student performance, and the students in the online section perform on average half a letter grade lower in every single exam, over many years. One reason for that is students self-selecting: those who are least likely to succeed are more likely to choose an asynchronous online class where they don't have to actually go to campus.

So I'd keep this in mind to evaluate any difference in ratings between in-person and online classes and would look for very specific comments.
 

[regentrude]

As others said: look for patterns of specific comments.

General statements "great" or "horrible" are meaningless, even if they repeat. As PP pointed out, only students who love or hate the prof will bother rating on RMP.

If multiple comments mentioned unorganized class, late grading, exams not matching the taught content, then I would take note.
Negative comments from A-students and positive comments from C-students are something to take seriously, while I would not put much stock into a gripe from a student who is failing the class.

Lastly, please keep in mind that just because a student has a specific complaint does not mean they are factually correct. My lectures contain between 1 and 3 worked out example problems for each lecture, yet I have students complain in the evals that I never do any examples. WTH?
 

[regentrude]

On 5/18/2023 at 2:28 PM, idnib said:

We've only done a couple of cc professors, but DS and I found them to not be very accurate. We've talked about how profs probably read them too for feedback and perhaps make adjustments.

I doubt that. Profs may read the comments they get on the college's official evals and possibly make adjustments, but I do not think they put much stock into RMP. For one thing, the number of students using RMP is extremely small.
I have 66 ratings on RMP, but I have taught over 10,000 students.

[regentrude]

On the topic of student ratings and not taking comments at face value:
I just finished reading the comment on my semester evals. A student complained "We should not have the first two exams at 6pm and then suddenly the third test at 5 pm." I have no idea what this student is talking about; every exam this semester started at 5pm (which was also stated clearly in the syllabus). WTH?

[Farrar]

I look for multiple comments that the teacher is callous or disorganized. There were comments like this about a prof ds had in CC and we were like, it'll be fine. It was not fine. She changed due dates at the last minute and punished students who asked questions about it - and by punished, I mean, someone asks a question to clarify what the rubric or expectations or due dates are and she called them names and then took points away from the entire class. Her Canvas course routinely had incorrect due dates and sometimes she'd be like, oh, whatever you all know that's not the real due date, during class, but then would give them no credit if they didn't have it in, meaning that sometimes assignments were given that she hadn't done the groundwork for or didn't make sense and no one could ever tell if it was really due or not. She was deeply mercurial, sometimes giving amazing, detailed, supportive feedback... and sometimes just being nasty and rude. By the end of the course, the students had a group chat going that was not nice, but also, they were all afraid of her. It was all the worst comments come to life from RMP. And I could see how the positive ones were true too. But what a mess.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Farrar

[EKS]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

On the topic of student ratings and not taking comments at face value:
I just finished reading the comment on my semester evals. A student complained "We should not have the first two exams at 6pm and then suddenly the third test at 5 pm." I have no idea what this student is talking about; every exam this semester started at 5pm (which was also stated clearly in the syllabus). WTH?

Maybe it's a reference to daylight saving time.

[MagistraKennedy]

2 hours ago, Farrar said:

I look for multiple comments that the teacher is callous or disorganized. There were comments like this about a prof ds had in CC and we were like, it'll be fine. It was not fine. She changed due dates at the last minute and punished students who asked questions about it - and by punished, I mean, someone asks a question to clarify what the rubric or expectations or due dates are and she called them names and then took points away from the entire class. Her Canvas course routinely had incorrect due dates and sometimes she'd be like, oh, whatever you all know that's not the real due date, during class, but then would give them no credit if they didn't have it in, meaning that sometimes assignments were given that she hadn't done the groundwork for or didn't make sense and no one could ever tell if it was really due or not. She was deeply mercurial, sometimes giving amazing, detailed, supportive feedback... and sometimes just being nasty and rude. By the end of the course, the students had a group chat going that was not nice, but also, they were all afraid of her. It was all the worst comments come to life from RMP. And I could see how the positive ones were true too. But what a mess.

Did you leave a review in RMP following that horrific experience? That's exactly the sort of teacher I would want to avoid.

[Farrar]

20 minutes ago, MagistraKennedy said:

Did you leave a review in RMP following that horrific experience? That's exactly the sort of teacher I would want to avoid.

Yeah. Kid did.

It was a really mixed experience. He worked his rear off. She sometimes gave him personally a bunch of praise and then other times was really not nice and punitive. Ended up with a B and it didn't ruin anything for him so that's good.

But there were more than a dozen reviews that basically said what I said, though couched a bit. That she was really harsh for no reason, sometimes really disorganized, demanded way too much. We thought, okay, but maybe those are sour grapes for grades because look at all these that say she was tough but fair, tough but they learned a ton. Welp, I see now they were both right, but that you didn't know exactly which experience you'd end up with because it was a bit random.

[Roadrunner]

We also look for patters on RMP but mostly we found reading those reviews after taking the class, there is usually a review or two that lines up exactly with our experiences. However knowing beforehand which reviews to listen is difficult.

We do avoid teachers if the majority complain about disorganization and lack of grading. 

[teachermom2834]

The reviews are also helpful just for tips on how to navigate the class. One time there was one for a de class my ds took that said something like “attendance is optional the day after a test but if you go he lets you rework problems to get points back” or something to that effect. Lots of times there are tips in the reviews that just help navigate a class in general or warn about lots of group projects or that sort of thing. 

[skimomma]

On 5/18/2023 at 4:55 PM, Bootsie said:

I have taught over 2500 students at the school where I currently teach and I have ONE review on rate-my-professor associated with this school. 

This is my experience as well.  I taught about 2000 students during my time as an instructor and I have *two* RMP reviews.  One is positive but from the comments does not appear to be someone who actually took my class.  The other is very negative and was clearly submitted by a student with an axe to grind.  Given the timing of the submission, I actually know who it is.  They gave a 0 on every metric, even ones that did not apply in my class.  Then left a single comment that work was not graded and returned quickly enough.  I admit that I have flaws as an instructor but the one thing that I was always rock solid on was timely feedback.  When I was still working with paper, every single assignment was returned the class period after it was due.  When we moved to Canvas it was even faster.  Every single time, without fail.  I even gave students the option of picking up their (paper) graded work *before* we met next if they wanted.  Remember that I know who this student is.  They did not turn in a single assignment and came to me after the final exam (that they also did not take) to see how they could "get my grade up to passing."  There was nothing to be done at that point although I did direct them to the dean if they felt they had circumstances that would warrant accommodations or an extension (incomplete).  The review appeared the day of that meeting.  The comment is 100% baseless.  

My own college student does look at RMP but I have warned her to not take it too seriously.....especially for people who only have a small number of reviews.  I would take note of trends in the comments.

[cintinative]

@Lori D. this info is so helpful. Do you think we should add it to the College motherlode? Up to you. 😃

[Lori D.]

Done. 😄 

Bottom of PAGE 5 of the "High School Motherlode #2" pinned thread, under the Dual Enrollment sub-topic, next to a thread asking how to rate community colleges.

[Corraleno]

Both of my kids have used RMP quite a bit, either to help choose between instructors when there were multiple sections open or just to get a heads-up on what to expect if there was only one option. I think they tend to fall into certain patterns, one of the most common of which is profs with mostly positive reviews saying they are tough but fair and you'll learn a lot if you work hard, combined with low ratings saying they're harsh graders, too many assignments, they expect "way too much work for a GE course," etc. The ones to watch out for are the ones complaining about disorganization, lack of grading, constantly changing deadlines, etc.

DD took a writing class with an instructor whose reviews were a mix of 5 star and 1 star, with nothing in between. The 5-star reviews focused on things like what a "cool guy" he was, he talks about really interesting things, he's not a hard grader, and the 1-star reviews all said he was totally disorganized, his Canvas page was blank (no syllabus or assignments or deadlines listed anywhere), there was no way to know what was due when and there was never any feedback anyway. DD ended up dropping the class after 3 weeks because she said the "lectures" were just weird rambling monologues that seemed to have nothing to do with the class, he'd mention assignments in passing with no deadline or rubric, and she just had no idea what was going on.

She's currently taking an A&P class with an instructor who had 100% 5-star reviews saying he's a really gifted teacher, he truly cares that students understand the material and will bend over backwards to help them, he replies to emails and provides constant feedback, etc., and that has definitely been her experience, so she's really glad she checked RMP and chose this section instead of the one where the instructor had mixed reviews.

[luuknam]

On 5/18/2023 at 11:51 AM, BusyMom5 said:

Google for a class syllabus from each professor,  many are posted online! 

And if you can't find one, you can email the prof. Whether/how fast the prof replies and with what kind of attitude might give a hint too (though it of course doesn't prove anything), but in my experience many are happy to send you a copy and encourage you to take their class.