Rate My Professors informs students’ class choices, fosters control over college path

Rate My Professors gives students a chance to anonymously review instructors and universities on a scale of one to five. Credit: Mackenzie Shanklin | Photo Editor

Choosing the right professor is important to any student scheduling classes with unfamiliar instructors, but one website hopes to help with just that.

Rate My Professors gives students a chance to anonymously review instructors and universities, offering advice on what to expect from a course and its instructor. It also offers value for professors, as Tonya Forsythe, a lecturer of public speaking in the School of Communication, said she uses the website to reflect on her instruction and reception among students.

“It’s so much easier to complain than it is to praise in our society,” Forsythe said. “What we can do as professors is to get on there and say, ‘OK, what am I doing that is connecting with my students? What am I doing in my course that is helping them learn the material and being fair?’ ”

According to the Rate My Professors website, students often use the platform to provide insight into classrooms for prospective students by rating educators at the university and the course difficulty on a scale of 1-5.

Murphy Horning, a fourth-year in communication, said he typically uses Rate My Professors to  check ratings for his current and upcoming professors. Horning said while some reviewing sites may contain unreliable ratings, Rate My Professors is different. 

“It’s a pretty useful tool, in my opinion,” Horning said. “On this website, I think it’s pretty balanced. People will leave good reviews if the professor is good, and they’ll leave bad reviews if the professor is bad.”

While students like Horning regularly use the website to look for helpful, well-organized and communicative instructors, some professors like Forsythe and Lori Kendall, a senior lecturer of management and human resources in the Fisher College of Business, said while they do check Rate My Professors, they do so infrequently. 

Kendall, who has a 4.9/5 and a “100% would take again” rating on Rate My Professors, said she checks her rating around once a year. However, she said she likes how the platform gives students the power to influence their own education.

“What I absolutely love is the empowerment of engaging with other students to chart wisdom about your learning experience,” Kendall said. “I love taking your education in your own hands, and charting a path for yourself that makes sense for you and the generosity of students sharing their experience to help other students make decisions.”  

Forsythe said she typically gets feedback from students through final course reflections or through conversations both in and out of class. Forysthe is Ohio State’s top-rated instructor on Rate My Professors with 34 positive reviews and a 5/5 rating.

Forsythe said she thinks the positive feedback reflects her three core values in teaching: relevance to real life, unbiased grading and belief in giving grace to struggling students. 

“I really feel like I have great open communication with my students,” she said. “They know I care about them as people first and as students second.” 

Forsythe said these reviews can help professors build personal connections with students and improve instruction.

“I think folks tend to respond negatively to professors if they feel like the professor didn’t care about their job or about them as people,” Forsythe said. “For people to go on and specifically say something positive, you have to have made a big impact.”

As far as Forsythe’s instruction is concerned, she said reviews on Rate My Professors have reaffirmed her communication skills and grading system, but also encouraged her to incorporate the course-required textbook in her teaching more often. 

Forsythe said instructors, whether they have good or bad reviews, can learn more about how to show students they care and continue to improve their classes.

“I would just encourage anyone who had marks that they don’t think are great to look inside themselves as a professor and say, ‘What are some things I can do to better connect with my students?’ ” Forsythe said. “Even if you do have great marks, that doesn’t mean that you’re done, doesn’t mean that you’ve done the best that you can do.”