Innumerable college students use the website Rate My Professors. The service, founded in 1999, describes itself as the “Internet’s largest listing of collegiate professor ratings”. The website was created for students because “students are the CUSTOMERS of professors - and we [the creators of RMP] believe they absolutely have a right to voice their opinions.” Students can “rate” their professor based on everything from helpfulness to whether or not the professor is “hot.”

Students from colleges all over the world use the website to search for the professors who teach the classes they plan to take. They can then discover if the professor is funny, interesting, and an easy grader, or if the professor is extremely dull and rarely gives out A’s. After the student takes a class, he or she can review the professor so the next batch of prospective students will know what to expect. Raters do not have to register with the website, making it very simple and quick for students to look up and rate professors.

When rating a professor, students decide the “Easiness,” “Helpfulness,” “Clarity,” “Interest level prior to attending class,” “Textbook Use,” “Attendance,” and “Appearance.” If a teacher is judged very good-looking by a majority of reviewers, a chili pepper will appear next to their name. Students can also write comments, which are usually the most important; here, students gripe about nine-page papers or praise the interesting lectures.

Some students, such as myself, use this website as a college Bible. After signing up for a Geology class, I checked Rate My Professors, and upon reading that “The class average for the midterm was a D” and that he was a “monotonous lecturer” with “ridiculously difficult tests,” I dropped the class at once and chose a new one. However, some students wonder if these student ratings are accurate enough for to base a schedule off of the website.

William Turner, a sophomore at the University of California, Santa Barbara said, “Students use the website to influence their decisions, but remember that anyone can write anything on the website.”

William brings up a good point; anyone can go on the website and rate the professors. The website is moderated, and severely abusive remarks will be deleted, but students do not need to provide any proof of who they are, which can skew the website’s ratings. If a student received a grade that they felt was unfair, they could rate the professor 30 times, spreading false word. However, it should be noted that professors have the ability to “rebut” students comments and argue against any unfair comments.

While it is true that some of the comments may be biased, the majority of raters are just voicing their opinion about the professor. In fact, according to the website, over 65% percent of ratings are positive. Students should indeed be careful about trusting everything they read on Rate My Professor, but when more than a handful of people exclaim the professor’s brilliance, trust them and take the class. Don’t underestimate the power of the chili pepper either; having an attractive professor can help keep a student’s attention.