By the time students finish college, many are experienced with using the Rate My Professors website. This site allows students to write anonymous comments on professors at their university and rate them in different categories such as easiness, helpfulness and clarity. The ratings go from one to five, where one is poor and five is excellent. This allows students to feel safe to write a review without feeling afraid of repercussions.

These reviews can be helpful to students when choosing what course they’d like to take. But it’s important to remember that professors can also read what is said.

“I have used students’ comments to clarify concepts that students found difficult, especially when it comes to grading or classroom structure online,” Diego Batista, a foreign language professor at Weber State University, said.

Rate My Professors does not allow educators to edit or erase student comments, but it does allow them to respond to students’ evaluations.

Professors are only removed if they no longer work at the listed University. On the other hand, there’s no guarantee that the reviews are from actual students who took the course. Some students may base their decisions on the professor’s political views, race, gender or teaching method.

“I’ve taught English 2010 for more than 20 years to hundreds of students, but on RMP, there are only 17 reviews — last time I checked, anyway — which means that is not a good sample,” Weber State Professor Sylvia Newman said. “The reviews tend to be written by either the most disgruntled students or the most enthusiastic students. You don’t get a full picture. However, I think students today are more savvy about interpreting reviews — if they read them. If they just go by the rating without reading the reviews, I think they will be misled.”

Many students nowadays use Rate My Professors when making enrollment decisions. These decisions can affect how many students the professor gets in their classroom and a possible evaluation by the school.

“I wish there was a way to separate what students think of the professor and the course itself,” Batista said. “Sometimes students rate the professor based on the content of the course, but many times, professors don’t have a say over what the class material or content can be. I wish students would rate the professor’s performance separately from how they felt about the textbook, for example.”