Photo Illustration by Matt Weir / The Collegian
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With students’ enrollment appointments beginning this week, the website ratemyprofessors.com (RMP) may see an increase in popularity with Fresno State students.

The site is in its 10th year and lists more than 1 million professors around the country. Users can rate former professors or review the rankings of prospective ones with Likert Scale rankings in categories such as easiness, helpfulness and clarity. Users can also leave comments, and everything is confidential.

Fourth-year student Allen Perry used the website to help him throughout his collegiate career. Perry admittedly used the site to find the professors that teach the most effortless classes.

“I use it to try to get the easy professors and the easier classes, and try to see who gives the least work,” Perry said. “I mainly used it for my G.E. classes.”

Perry said the site gave dependable reviews of the professors whose classes he eventually enrolled in.

Sophomore Raquel Perez said she refused to use such a website when registering, and would rather judge professors for herself.

“I would experience for myself rather than just what other people put on there,” Perez said. Perez said that students have other options than just avoiding a difficult professor.

“I would probably want a difficult teacher, because I’m not paying to get an easy grade,” Perez said. “That’s kind of lazy.”

Chris Cruz, a sophomore, had not heard of RMP, but said he would use it to help find professors that suit his learning style for upcoming classes.

Professor Tamyra Pierce says that she puts stock in these ratings and uses them to sharpen her teaching skills.

“I look up my ratings occasionally,” Pierce said. “I take any and all ratings seriously and want to do everything I can to be a good professor and make the learning experience for students not only fun and exciting but also productive and effective.“

But she is aware that the site’s ratings are not completely valid.

“The validity or reliability issues arise when one person posts more than one evaluation for one faculty [member],” Pierce said. “This could skew the results and therefore taint the overall validity of the rating.”

Overall, Pierce said that the RMP website is beneficial to students and she hopes that they institute integrity when ranking her and her colleagues.

“I think for the most part, students are fairly honest with their remarks,” Pierce said. “I know many students who rely on these sites and turn to them to help guide their selection of classes and professors. So, I would hope that students are honest and help each other in evaluating classes and professors.”

Several problems can occur with the site. For example, students are able to leave multiple ratings for one individual as long as they use a different IP address. Also, students can rate however and whoever they want, even if they haven’t had that professor. A study by Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions found that this may be contributing to grade leniency to stave off poor reviews.

Also, some comments may be determined libel if they are untrue and damaging to a professor’s career. Another interesting aspect of the site is the “hotness” rating, where users can score the professor’s attractiveness.

Pierce said that she paid little attention to this particular rating.

“I don’t really pay attention to the hotness ratings and I doubt most students do either,” Pierce said. “That’s just a humorous thing to most students, I believe. I’ve only heard comments from faculty about this a couple of times and it was laughed off.”