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NYU professor Anthony Reynolds says RateMyProfessors.com has made him a better instructor.
"Help comes in a lot of surprising forms, after all, when it comes to learning and teaching," he said.
Reynolds, who has an overall quality score of 3.6 on the popular website, finds the comments useful, though he does not rely on them.
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But according to a recent study conducted by researchers from University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire, RateMyProfessors.com may be more of a reliable resource for college students than its reputation suggests.
Analyzing the ratings of more than 350 instructors with more than 10 comments, researchers found that student ratings remained largely consistent for professors and that students were able to distinguish between quality and easiness.
"Even among the easiest third of instructors, students show tremendous consensus about which of those instructors are high quality and strong consensus about which of those instructors are low quality," professor of psychology at Eau Claire and study co-author April Bleske-Rechek said.
With over 13 million professor ratings ranging across over 7,500 schools, the site categorizes professors' by their easiness, helpfulness and clarity.
An overall score out of five is assigned to the professor based on the average of helpfulness and clarity ratings. The site also provides a comments section for students to elaborate on their choice in ratings.
But Ron Rainey, a master teacher in LSP with the overall quality score of 3.0, thinks that the site does not provide a useful rating of professors.
"RateMyProfessors.com is more of a popularity contest than anything else," Rainey said. "And the most popular professors are not always the best. For example, the very fact that students can post a red-hot-chili-pepper to rate the sexiness of their professor suggests the circus atmosphere and lack of seriousness of that survey."
Scott Korb, a Gallatin professor with an overall quality score of 4.8, checks himself on the site every semester. Though he thinks students can be helped by the site, he said the best and most common way to find professors is through word of mouth.
"Obivously students talk about classes and teachers," he said. "Professors should and do, too."
Still, CAS freshman Stacy Suh said she depends on the website when registering for her classes.
"It ends up being that lectures for a professor that is rated poorly by the students are open and the rest are closed," Suh said. "I usually believe the ratings and end up agreeing with them 85 to 90 percent of the time."
