RateMyProfessors.com

Web site allows students to assess professors

It’s already five weeks into the semester and another class with your sociology professor feels like torture. His monotonous, mind-numbing lectures seem to drag on for hours. Regretting that you’ve taken the course? Wishing you would have known better? Perhaps you should have consulted ratemyprofessors.com.

One actual professor rating begins, "Golly, I have never in my entire life been so demoralized by such simplistic concepts … not only do I fall asleep constantly, I also tear feverishly at the veins in my wrists to end my no-longer-worthwhile life."

This review of a JMU professor is only one of the over two million national ratings found on the Web site. JMU has the 5th highest number of ratings among all colleges and universities within the United States with a whopping 20,573 reviews and counting.

Ratemyprofessors.com was started in the spring of 1999. At the time, John Swapceinski, creator of the site, was attending San Jose State University. He filed a formal complaint against a "dastardly" professor but, unfortunately, nothing was done. After the incident, Swapceinski felt the need to warn other students about this professor. Thus, ratemyprofessors.com was born.

Ratemyprofessors.com is a free Web site that allows students to articulate their true feelings about college professors. On a scale from 1 to 5 (1 being the worst and 5 being the best), students can rate a professor on helpfulness, clarity and easiness. Another option allows students to express if the teacher is "hot" or "not." As one of the reviews of a JMU professor reveals, it is "too bad she has a boyfriend."

Some students use ratemyprofessors.com almost religiously while others rarely, if ever, look at the site.

"Most of the posts are from early 2003 for a lot of the professors, so it’s hard to see how accurate it still is," said senior Jason Moore, an occasional visitor to the site. Although some entries may seem a bit harsh, Swapceinski states on the site: "Please keep your comments clean. Anything libelous will be deleted."

About two-thirds of the professors he hears from hate the site, he stated. "I get threatened by professors with legal action on pretty much a weekly basis," he said. "Fortunately, the First Amendment is on our side."

Junior Candice Flandrau said that students often seek out the "favorite" professor and by doing this they potentially miss out on a great professor just because they might not have received as many stellar ratings.

Philosophy professor Ann Wiles is a supporter of the site. "I really like ratemyprofessors.com, perhaps because I generally get fairly good ratings," she said. "Some of my colleagues do not, and I cringe on their behalf. It is interesting because the ratings I get are in line with those I receive on the student evaluations of instruction."

Stephen Rollman, professor of communication studies, had no comment about the Web site in particular, but he shared an idea of his own. "A while ago, I told a class that I had an idea for a Web site called ‘ratemystudents.com’ in which professors, potential employers, parents — as well as anyone in the world — would be able to see anonymous comments from a student’s former professors," Rollman said. "The class looked at me like I was nuts." Perhaps it does sound a bit crazy now, but who knows, students may see more sites like this in the future.

Since its creation, ratemyprofessors.com has received a great deal of attention. With over 50,000 visitors per day, the site’s popularity steadily has increased.

"I think it’s a great site to use,_ especially when deciding on a section of a class to take," sophomore Evelyn Lucia said. "I know the kinds of qualities I look for in good professors and the site gives an honest view of the professor and how they run the class from people who I can most relate to — my peers."

Currently, ratemyprofessors.com offers the option of purchasing a "gold membership." A one-year membership costs $9.95, while a two-year membership costs $14.95. Benefits of a gold membership include: no popup ads, the ability to see all the ratings (non-gold members only see the 10 most recent ratings of each professor), and the ability to contact registered raters anonymously to ask more specific questions.

If you haven’t already, check out the site. Contribute your own reviews and have a good laugh.

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