How will you spend your Thanksgiving break?
When CAS senior Linda Chen walked out of yet another lackluster lecture, she thought two things.
One, the professor was boring, too homely, and lacked charisma.
Two, she had to find the nearest computer so she could write a scathing review on Ratemyprofessors.com.
But as of last week, a computer isn't needed to access the popular site. On Jan. 20, mtvU launched the Ratemyprofessors.com iPhone application for $0.99, giving students the ability to post or read professor ratings immediately.
Now, the website is the third-ranked iPhone app in the Education category.
"I've always used the site to choose my classes, so I would buy the app," CAS junior Katerina Kerez said.
According to Carlo DiMarco, mtvU vice president of university relations, there are over 1 million professors rated and 10 million posts in the system. The site sees about 100,000 student visits a day, reaching 3.2 million college students per month.
"Ratemyprofessors continues to be a hit as the largest online database for professor ratings," he said. "It has proven itself over time to be valuable to students."
The site also aims to engage professors, providing two opportunities for them to defend themselves. "Professors Strike Back" shows videos of professors responding to criticism such as "arrogant as hell" and "fails to explain almost everything." The second, more popular function is the "Professor Rebuttal" button, which allows for immediate postings on the forum in direct response to their students.
Not all professors are against the idea of being openly reviewed online. Liberal Studies Program professor Michael Rectenwald, a fan of the website, encouraged his students to rate him at the end of each semester.
"I think it's a good, uncensored and lively way for former students to make recommendations or to issue warnings about a particular professor," Rectenwald said. "Any information they can find should be accessed in order to make informed decisions. I'm all for it."
LSP professor Gerceida Jones also reviews her own ratings on the site. She said they contain useful information but can also be hurtful at times.
"There are some personal attacks which have nothing to do with your teaching ability," Jones said. "The students could be disgruntled due to not receiving the grades they expected or because they just don't like you."
After viewing some student postings that read more like rants, Stern sophomore Brady Chiu has steered clear of the site.
"Some of the perspectives are just too extreme," Chiu said. "I get better data from directly asking upperclassmen who have taken the same classes before."
An independent study that compared Ratemyprofessors.com to the academic rating systems endorsed by universities showed that both systems yield near-equal ratings for professors.
There is, however, one key difference — Ratemyprofessors.com also tells you which professors are hot.
