A Redditor Asks Students About RMP

[Wahoo Redux]

How much does ratemyprofessor.com influence your decision to choose your classes?

I think it's a useful tool, especially when it comes to habits like profs randomly calling on people, not answering emails for 3-5days, and not submitting any grades until the end of the semester. I seldom use the site to determine whether or not I would have enjoyed a class or the instructor/prof. I used it to predict whether or not I'd succeed in the classroom environment.

Trade secret information here, but I write RMP reviews about myself as a professor. I write that I am a hardass who doesn't accept late assignments, has high standards for assignments, and I require students to read the syllabus and other materials.

This prevents lazy students from signing up for my classes. As a result, most of my students are fantastic people who really care.

It sets expectations.

It reduces my enrollment. Some people seem to think that my reviews on RMP affect my job somehow. They do not.

It increases my credibility when employers reach out to me to hire my students. Employers don't care about the professor who gives everyone As. When I say that Student X is exceptional in a letter, employers know it isn't B.S. Very few people get a clear "A" in my class. If your favorite professor is an easy A, your letter of rec from them isn't going to help you out in most cases.

There's probably others, but it is Sat. night

Not much, I have had experimces with professors and their classes that were the complete opposite from the reviews they were given.

I do not enroll in a class with an instructor who has overwhelmingly bad reviews. I realize that there are always whiners leaving review, no matter how great the professor actually is. But, if the majority of their reviews are bad, and people are all saying similar things in their reviews, there is a reason.

I love it. I don't know about other institutions but at mine it's rather accurate.

Great example: There were two sections of a class I took. Same book. Same labs. Same final. The professor with red reviews down the page on RMP had most of his students drop and those that were left were largely Ds and Fs. There were no Bs or As. The other professor was a 5.0 on RMP (the one I chose, of course!). We had a lot of very successful students and only one drop from what I can remember from the start of the semester.

Which professor actually managed to guide his students to success and understanding?

I am able to avoid serious landmines in my academic career thanks to RMP.

I use RMP as a student to see which professors have the clearest grading criteria. Because the price is so high for uni, I feel like I absolutely cannot take chances with professors who only award the best grades to who they perceive to be the most dedicated or hardworking. And I can't handle the anxiety of constantly questioning if I'm doing enough. And then I become fixated on just a grade and not actually enjoying or getting the most out of my class. Tbh, the pressure of having to keep grades up very high because of scholarships along with positive prospects for employment afterwards and how high the cost of uni is have turned the entire experience from something inspiring and a place to challenge oneself into an extremely stressful and soul crushing situation. It's like this delicate dance I feel I have to perform where it's not even about education anymore.

[marshwiggle]

This is my favourite, even though I wouldn't do it myself.

Trade secret information here, but I write RMP reviews about myself as a professor. I write that I am a hardass who doesn't accept late assignments, has high standards for assignments, and I require students to read the syllabus and other materials.

This prevents lazy students from signing up for my classes. As a result, most of my students are fantastic people who really care.

It sets expectations.

It reduces my enrollment. Some people seem to think that my reviews on RMP affect my job somehow. They do not.

It increases my credibility when employers reach out to me to hire my students. Employers don't care about the professor who gives everyone As. When I say that Student X is exceptional in a letter, employers know it isn't B.S. Very few people get a clear "A" in my class. If your favorite professor is an easy A, your letter of rec from them isn't going to help you out in most cases.

There's probably others, but it is Sat. night

This is sad that a student who seems to realize what matters in the long term, isn't willing to commit in the short term.

I use RMP as a student to see which professors have the clearest grading criteria. Because the price is so high for uni, I feel like I absolutely cannot take chances with professors who only award the best grades to who they perceive to be the most dedicated or hardworking. And I can't handle the anxiety of constantly questioning if I'm doing enough. And then I become fixated on just a grade and not actually enjoying or getting the most out of my class. Tbh, the pressure of having to keep grades up very high because of scholarships along with positive prospects for employment afterwards and how high the cost of uni is have turned the entire experience from something inspiring and a place to challenge oneself into an extremely stressful and soul crushing situation. It's like this delicate dance I feel I have to perform where it's not even about education anymore.

The thing that has always baffled me is that unless a university is huge, most courses, including required courses, will have only one section. Therefore only a few courses will actually have the option of Prof A or Prof B. It can't realistically form a major part of the decision for the vast majority of students.

[Puget]

It's interesting to me that students at some universities still seem to use it a lot-- our students don't use it hardly at all.

[Parasaurolophus]

The thing that has always baffled me is that unless a university is huge, most courses, including required courses, will have only one section. Therefore only a few courses will actually have the option of Prof A or Prof B. It can't realistically form a major part of the decision for the vast majority of students.

I'm not so sure about that. We're moderately large (~10k students), but run about 5 sections a semester (including spring and summer) of each of our two main intro courses. We don't offer majors or minors (inexplicably), and we're allergic to cancellations, so that's pretty much all we end up running (it's those two plus a section or two a semester of a handful of 200-level courses). By contrast, at the university at which I did my PhD (~40k students), the only course with more than one section was intro, and there were usually just two of them (granted, it was capped at 180 compared to our 35). And at my postdoc program (~66k students), most of the intro-level courses have a million billion sections. (The difference between these last two is basically just how well integrated the department is with the rest of the university, and how much the admin cares about the department--not at all in the first case, and they think of it as a precious gem in the second.)

But even if there isn't more than one section a semester of some course, the course will be offered over multiple semesters, often with different instructors.

[marshwiggle]

The thing that has always baffled me is that unless a university is huge, most courses, including required courses, will have only one section. Therefore only a few courses will actually have the option of Prof A or Prof B. It can't realistically form a major part of the decision for the vast majority of students.

I'm not so sure about that. We're moderately large (~10k students), but run about 5 sections a semester (including spring and summer) of each of our two main intro courses. We don't offer majors or minors (inexplicably), and we're allergic to cancellations, so that's pretty much all we end up running (it's those two plus a section or two a semester of a handful of 200-level courses). By contrast, at the university at which I did my PhD (~40k students), the only course with more than one section was intro, and there were usually just two of them (granted, it was capped at 180 compared to our 35). And at my postdoc program (~66k students), most of the intro-level courses have a million billion sections. (The difference between these last two is basically just how well integrated the department is with the rest of the university, and how much the admin cares about the department--not at all in the first case, and they think of it as a precious gem in the second.)

But even if there isn't more than one section a semester of some course, the course will be offered over multiple semesters, often with different instructors.

This is my point; about the only courses with multiple sections will be intro courses; upper-level courses won't have any choice.  (Any even when the same course if offered in different terms, around here it's still usually the same person teaching it except for sabbaticals.) And if a part-time person teaches it once and is gone, it doesn't matter how they were since the'yr no longer an option.

[MarathonRunner]

The thing that has always baffled me is that unless a university is huge, most courses, including required courses, will have only one section. Therefore only a few courses will actually have the option of Prof A or Prof B. It can't realistically form a major part of the decision for the vast majority of students.

Lots of first year courses at my UG, masters, and PhD universities have had multiple sections. First year chemistry, physics, calculus, cell biology, microbiology, and intro sociology, intro psych, and similar common-to-many-disciplines first year courses, at all three universities have had multiple sections. My UG uni had multiple sections for organic chem and biochemistry as well. Lecture sections, not lab (there were many, many more lab sections of course).

[Caracal]

The thing that has always baffled me is that unless a university is huge, most courses, including required courses, will have only one section. Therefore only a few courses will actually have the option of Prof A or Prof B. It can't realistically form a major part of the decision for the vast majority of students.

Lots of first year courses at my UG, masters, and PhD universities have had multiple sections. First year chemistry, physics, calculus, cell biology, microbiology, and intro sociology, intro psych, and similar common-to-many-disciplines first year courses, at all three universities have had multiple sections. My UG uni had multiple sections for organic chem and biochemistry as well. Lecture sections, not lab (there were many, many more lab sections of course).

Really depends on the discipline. In the humanities and many social sciences you have a few required courses in the major and lots of electives. I also get the impression students use RMP more at larger schools. At a SLAC, it should be easy to find friends and classmates who have taken classes with someone before. Nobody really thinks reviews from anonymous strangers are better than ones from people you know. If I'm trying to figure out whether a restaurant is any good, I'm going to trust a friend who has been there much more than Yelp reviews from randos.

[apl68]

This is sad that a student who seems to realize what matters in the long term, isn't willing to commit in the short term.

I use RMP as a student to see which professors have the clearest grading criteria. Because the price is so high for uni, I feel like I absolutely cannot take chances with professors who only award the best grades to who they perceive to be the most dedicated or hardworking. And I can't handle the anxiety of constantly questioning if I'm doing enough. And then I become fixated on just a grade and not actually enjoying or getting the most out of my class. Tbh, the pressure of having to keep grades up very high because of scholarships along with positive prospects for employment afterwards and how high the cost of uni is have turned the entire experience from something inspiring and a place to challenge oneself into an extremely stressful and soul crushing situation. It's like this delicate dance I feel I have to perform where it's not even about education anymore.

The thing that has always baffled me is that unless a university is huge, most courses, including required courses, will have only one section. Therefore only a few courses will actually have the option of Prof A or Prof B. It can't realistically form a major part of the decision for the vast majority of students.

Since most students go to the big places where there would be more sections and electives--especially for undergrads--it's not too surprising that many would check into RMP.

The student quote above is sad, all right.  The student doesn't sound like a slacker.  This sounds like a student who is all too aware that we live in a dog-eat-dog, devil-take-the-hindmost career world, and is very afraid of becoming an also-ran in that world.  And is having a stressful educational experience and a limited sense of possibilities as a result.  This might be an example of a student whose interests lie in one field, but chose to major in another because the conventional wisdom said that it would be a waste of time.  I would imagine that majoring in something you don't really like, to gain a career you aren't necessarily thrilled about, would be very stressful.

It's strange, the differences we see in students.  Some seem clueless that they actually have to, you know, put in some effort learning stuff in order to succeed in college and in life.  Others are aware of that fact, and seem terrified that if they mess up it will ruin their lives forever.  They're the students who will probably do well, but they seem to be living in fear nonetheless.