How accurate is Rate My Professors?

EsmeSqualor
Wed, 26 Nov 2014 16:38:27 +0000

I work at a university, but am not teaching faculty. I’ve looked at a lot of RMP profiles. The students who post are generally only those who either love or hate the professor. There isn’t much of a middle ground. As an aside, my university has gone to an online system for the official student evaluation forms, instead of paper forms done in class. As a result, the students have to be motivated enough to go in and do the evaluations on their own time. So, just like RMP, what we’ve seen is that the middle has fallen out of the curve, and we only get evaluations from students who either loved or hated the prof.

In my experience, the RMP ratings have much more to do with how challenging the course is than how good or bad the prof is. Many of our students want the classes to be easy and fun, and aren’t willing to be challenged. Instead of relying too much on RMP, I would try to find other students who have had a particular prof and discuss what they liked or disliked about the class.