By Lea Abito | Staff Writer
In the days before course enrollment, doom-scrolling on Rate My Professors is a universal experience.
Students compare professors’ quality ratings, difficulty scores, “would take again” percentages and anonymous reviews, which are either overwhelmingly positive or insist the professors are evil incarnate. There is no in between.
But how else can you find out if your professor is any good?
There are about 8,000 schools and 1.8 million professors rated on Rate My Professors, with over 20 million reviews. Of those, over 650 professors are from Florida International University, which has an overall quality score of 4.4.
But is Rate My Professors reliable?
The obvious answer is no. But that doesn’t stop students from consulting it every semester. The site receives about 9 million views monthly, with 7 million active users, typically undergraduates between 17 and 21.
Rate My Professors presents itself as reliable, but it doesn’t account for or acknowledge its bias
In a Texas State University study, researchers found that “RMP data is flawed, inaccurate, biased and does not represent the truth.”
And yet students still flock to it because it’s the only way they can get an idea of what they’re in for, even if it is inaccurate. But the study found the data “far more negative than the ground truth” and “invalid for decision-making.”
It’s also common to find lowly-rated professors with harsh reviews that can bluntly state “avoid this professor at all costs!”
Then you walk into a 2.0-rated professor’s class, despite your best efforts, with dread and the words of anonymous reviews echoing in your ears, only to find the professor isn’t that bad.
The study credits this to sampling bias, as students with extreme opinions tend to leave reviews. The small sample sizes also skew the quality scores negatively and don’t reflect reality.
Freshman year, I found myself in this scenario, walking into a journalism course with a lowly-rated professor and horror stories from reviews.
The ratings couldn’t have been more wrong.
The professor turned out to be one of the best I’ve had at FIU, and every day I’m grateful I enrolled in the course. On the other hand, some professors have overwhelmingly positive ratings and students practically beg you to enroll.
It’s uncommon to discover that a professor’s near-perfect quality score and raving reviews can be far from the truth. But when it happens, it’s more jarring than finding a 1.0-rated professor favorable. FIU’s journalism department seems to hold both extremes.
In spring, I walked into class with a 1.7 difficulty score, dozens of perfect quality scores, and over 90% of students saying they would take it again. The anonymous reviews praised the professor’s character and teaching skills. So with a near-perfect overall quality score based on over 50 ratings, it seemed like the perfect class.
But all that glitters isn’t gold.
It didn’t take long to realize every review was misleading and that the few low scores and critical reviews were much closer to the truth.
I’ve taken many classes at FIU, some better than others, but none so disappointing. It was a tedious and unpleasant experience taught by a professor that students seemed compelled to hype up.
What the professor taught was both inconsistent with the course description and surprisingly AI-heavy, which was strange for a course required for journalism students. It’s the only class I felt I took away nothing but relief by the end of the semester.
It goes to show that Rate My Professors is manipulative at both extremes, and it’s best to take none of it at face value.
Walking into a class blind can be scary, but it’s as close to the truth as you’ll ever get.
DISCLAIMER:
The opinions presented on this page do not represent the views of the PantherNOW Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect the perspectives of contributing writers and/or university community members.
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