Rating professors should go beyond a numerical scale
With the next set of course registration just around the corner, it’s likely that all students will have the same two tabs open: USC Web Registration and Rate My Professors. Rate My Professors, as its name suggests, lists nearly two million professors and allows for reviews to be written on them.
As noted by a 2018 Daily Trojan article, students are often swayed by the reviews left about a certain professor, regardless of certain factors such as the voluntary response bias. It is easy, especially for professors themselves, to see the drawbacks of the anonymous rating component of the site. However, the website can serve as a resource through which students understand aspects of the professor’s teaching style and class expectations prior to registering for the course.
Professors receive University mandated course evaluations at the tail end of each semester, written by students in their class anonymously. However, changes don’t seem to be made based on the evaluations, as certain professors continue to receive negative feedback on the Rate My Professors website semester after semester. What does this say about how professors view students’ opinions in their end-of-semester course evaluations?
While it is true that certain students may have a unique experience with a certain professor that does not reflect the majority of their peers’ opinions, there is a transactional aspect to course evaluations that should be considered.
For the class of 2025, USC’s acceptance rate fell to 12%, further reinforcing the difficulty students face in being admitted. Considering this and USC’s high tuition cost, it is understandable that students have high expectations of their professors. Comments that are repeated in course evaluations should be taken into consideration by professors, who have also done great work in order to earn their position at such a prestigious institution.
While anyone — even a student who has not enrolled in a certain professor’s course — can leave a random review, some students may feel more comfortable being honest on the site, knowing it is possible that their professor may not come across it. Additionally, many course evaluations are done during class time, where students may not feel completely comfortable writing a fully honest review. Furthermore, students do not have access to other students’ evaluations, so someone who is considering taking a certain course only has access to the public reviews on Rate My Professors.
It is easy to see why many professors brush aside their reviews on Rate My Professors, as it is not a site associated with the University and has many aspects to it that make it a less credible source. Nonetheless, professors must take all of their students’ opinions into account, understanding that not every single one may be as valid as the next. This is salient considering both the private nature of course evaluations and the USC Schedule Helper Google Chrome extension. USC Schedule Helper automatically shows students a certain professor’s numerical rating from Rate My Professors as they are registering for their courses, creating a direct bridge between course registration and the website.
As pointed out by another 2018 Daily Trojan article entitled “Here’s the problem with Rate My Professors,” the site is far from perfect. Students have the ability to write multiple reviews on one professor in an effort to skew their rating, and the site itself operates on “reduc[ing] individual instructors into mere numbers.” This is a nuanced problem, but one that requires cooperation from both students and professors. While students should be honest when reviewing a professor, they should not take advantage of the platform to cause harm. Professors, too, should try to absorb the different reviews that they receive, particularly ones that are repeated.
Professors, similar to students, cannot be reduced to a number. Rate My Professors is a great tool to use, but it shouldn’t discourage students from trying out new classes or getting disheartened when they don’t get a professor with a rating of 4.0 or above. Nonetheless, the website was created for a reason: to allow students to give professors feedback and for other students to review them as they register for classes. A bad class schedule has quite an impact on a student’s college experience, so it’s the University’s responsibility to listen to its students and ensure their feedback is received.