By Endiya Watkins
Opinion Editor
Beyond the study habits and discipline students can control to boost their probability of success in the classroom, one factor lies beyond their control: the quality of their professor. Most students can relate to stories of professors with poor communication or a general inability to convey their knowledge, detrimentally affecting their ability to succeed in class. RateMyProfessors, a site where students can rate professors out of five stars, serves as a way for students to get ahead of the curve and find out which professors are the best—and the worst. This allows students to avoid professors who are branded as “poor” by reviews from past students.
Christopher Harvey, a current student at Wingate University, believes RateMyProfessors can be a great tool, especially when multiple professors teach the same class. “Math is already hard as it is,” says Harvey, a junior management major from Dillon, S.C. “The last thing I want is a professor making it harder. RateMyProfessors allows me to choose how I want to learn by picking the professor whose ratings best align with my learning preferences, and at the very least, it lets me know what I’m getting myself into.”
On the surface, RateMyProfessors seems like an honest way to know what your next professor will be like from people who have already taken the class. However, to truly understand RateMyProfessors—what its reviews represent and whether it is a reliable source for students—one must look at it from both sides of the screen: the student, pleased or angry, typing a review after receiving their final grade, and the professor, who occasionally takes a peek at their ratings.
Dr. Mark Roncace, a lead professor of religion at Wingate, boasts an impressive résumé composed of multiple degrees and authored books. However, this impressive list of accomplishments is juxtaposed by his below-average RateMyProfessors score, which sits at an underwhelming 2.9 out of 5. Are these past reviews the product of ineffective instructional methods exhibited by professors, or unmotivated and lazy students who are unable to rise to the challenge of rigorous college coursework? According to Roncace, neither.
Although he understands that students want information about their future classes, he also acknowledges that student reviews can often be misleading. He points to the outdated and sparse nature of some student reviews: “I’ve taught 200 to 250 students a year for 20 years—thousands of students in total. Even if there are 50 or 75 ratings, that’s only about one or two percent of the students I’ve taught.”
On top of many of the reviews being highly outdated, Roncace claims that his poor RateMyProfessors reviews are not necessarily a negative reflection on him or the student. If anything, it is a signature that his class sparked a chord with his students and challenged their way of thinking: “To me, a class that’s just ‘blah’—one that checks the box but doesn’t inspire strong feelings either way—is worse than a class that really pisses some people off and leads them to write terrible reviews. If students like the class, great. But if it riled them up enough to leave a review, odds are, from an administrative perspective, it did some in a good way—because it really made them think.”
Reviews are often made in the heat of the moment—when a student realizes they’ve done particularly well in a class or really poorly. Therefore, the reviews left on professors are most likely not from the average student but from someone who had a unique experience with their professor. Just because multiple reviews indicate a professor is below average does not make it objectively true. A student could give a professor a bad review because they require a reading before every class. However, this is standard for many majors, and many students enjoy reading and discussing what they have learned in class. Some reviews could also come from underperforming students who are projecting their anger onto their professors, despite themselves being their ultimate undoing in the class.
On the other hand, due to the high staff volume at Wingate, some professors may not be seen as great as others. Although RateMyProfessors might not be the most reliable place to seek advice on which professors are “good” professors, when you read between the lines, you can usually get a general understanding of what that professor’s instructional approach is and whether or not it aligns with how you learn. Ultimately, this is all students have available to do their due diligence in finding out which professors are right for them.
Generally, one should take RateMyProfessors with a grain of salt and refrain from using it as the final say on how good a professor is. If anything, students should rely on course evaluations to gauge a professor’s expertise and instructional approach. Students are strongly encouraged to fill out the form regarding their opinions on their classes. When asked if he would be open to a future where course evaluations would be made public, Roncace answered, “Unquestionably, yes. It provides much more data, a significantly higher response rate and is far more up-to-date. Right now, students are relying on reviews about me from RateMyProfessors that were written in 2016—almost nine years ago.”
Allowing students open access to course evaluations would give them accurate and updated information from numerous students about their future classes and professors. This could encourage accountability among professors who know that students and staff can easily see the general perception of their teaching. Students pay thousands of dollars to attend classes, this alone should make them entitled to some form of information concerning the expertise and instructional approach of their professors.
In our modern age, having access to up-to-date reviews on even minor establishments such as movies and restaurants is vital in deciding where one decides to spend money. When students are unable to access relevant information about their classes, it unfairly denies them the opportunity to make an informed purchase when enrolling in a class. Wingate clearly understands the importance of having access to student feedback, as seen in their encouragement of students to complete course evaluations for their staff. If this information is available, why is it being withheld from students who could use it to make a more educated decision with their money?
Wingate Triangle 