Rate My Professors (RMP) is an online forum that allows college students to review professors at their college anonymously. Here is what FAU professors and students think about the website.
Steve Mitton is a history department’s senior instructor, and 95% of raters said they would retake his class. Mitton says he checks his RMP score regularly as it provides valuable feedback and makes sure his lessons are beneficial.
“Rate My Professors is a valuable tool for students to get direct feedback from peers more readily […] and provides valuable feedback for teachers and students. It also gives students a platform to express their opinions,” Mitton said.
Mitton explained that you can usually spot a good professor if they have a high difficulty rating combined with a high RMP score. This indicates that the professor has a track record for giving students a healthy challenge and is skilled at getting students to understand complex concepts. Mitton also says to look for consistent improvement.
Danielle Banton graduated from FAU this past summer and said she held the site in high regard as a student.
“RMP is extremely accurate; never register for classes without using RMP. It’s like walking into a class blind, without RMP, my college experience would have been terrible,” she said.
Banton suggests that the scores you see are not as important as the comments from students who took the class.
“Don’t even look at the score. It’s irrelevant. Look at the comments… [look to see] if comments are consistently good or consistently bad,” Danielle said.
Stephen Engle is the university’s associate provost for Academic Personnel and a history professor. He tends to focus on comments, too.
“I look at the comments [on RMP] rather than the number because the comments tell me what’s working and what’s not […] We are always trying to do better to meet student demands,” he said.
Engle encourages students to have an open mind and meet professors halfway. “Looking for the easiest teacher will not set you up for success,” he said.
“Some subjects are not as glamorous as others and harder to teach, such as math and chemistry. […] Some students might not appreciate a challenge,” he explained.
Kirk Orr is a contributing writer for the University Press. For more information on this article or others, you can reach him at [email protected].
Kwangho • Oct 27, 2023 at 6:20 pm
Is it okay, regardless of positive or negative contents, that INDIVIDUALS’ working performance and personality with IDENTITY are alluded and rated (even by numeric) “PUBLICLY”, with no consent, with no process process? No one is really concerned about how much impact on our education system consisting of students, educators, institutions. There are healthy platforms and procedure to fulfill this genuine purpose, and as needed, it should be improved and developed PROFESSIONALLY.
At least, the right for the individual to delete the name from the site SHOULD be assured. At least, the individual’s disagreement to be “PUBLICLY POSTED” should be accepted.
One should be carefully aware of this RMP site’s statements – “We are not arbiters of facts” and “We do not remove professors from our site unless they are no longer teaching at the listed University and have been removed from the college’s website. Students have the ability to add professors any time and new profiles are often re-created shortly after one is removed”.
Our society should be able to clarify:
What kind of logic/consensus do we have in this world permitting to publicize the individual’s working performance-related rates (even with numeric), personality-related contents, without the individual’s consent and with no means of FACT CHECK, regardless of positive or negative contents?
What kind of authority is on earth given to the RMP continuously ignoring a professor’s request to delete the name from the site permanently, since the professor does not wish that her/his name, personality, working performance are alluded and rated (even with numeric) “PUBLICLY” and “OPENLY,” regardless of positive or negative contents.
Angela Nichols • Sep 1, 2023 at 10:22 am
I think it’s really important for students to also consider that similar to something like a yelp review, the most satisfied and dissatisfied students are the most likely to leave ratings on rate my professor. I have taught thousands of students over the years, but I only have about 30 rate my professor reviews.
Theodore Jackson • Oct 2, 2023 at 2:59 am
Agreed. In fact, I think most reviews on this website are negative reviews from bad-performing students, sometimes REPEATED reviews from the SAME student. College teaching is not a restaurant service where you are entitled a good grade just because you have paid the tuition. Professors are “coaches” not service providers. They have authorities over grades which will necessarily make some people unhappy. This is why this website is so absurd and ridiculous. It lets you see the ugly side of human beings when they can be anonymous. Also, where on earth is this “FAU” university?