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As the time of academic advising draws near, more and more Calvin students will refer to the RateMyProfessor.com Web site for help deciding which professors to take. But is this Web site the best tool to use for something as important as choosing which classes to take?

"I look up all my profs before I take classes," said freshman Michael Lynn Hannink, Calvin's student manager for the site.

RateMyProfessor.com is a Web site featuring many colleges across the country where students can rate and make comments about their professors. Professors are critiqued on clarity, ease, helpfulness and even their physical appearance.

In professors' minds, it's a place for students to let out their feelings, whether positive or negative. But many professors don't realize that it's a major tool that students use when planning out classes.

"It was meant so students could get an idea about the professors before they went into the class, and used as a tool to help you choose," Hannink said. "It's something students generally take seriously. Sometimes people do rant and vent, but it's also a tool. When there are a lot of ratings, it can be used to see what kind of a prof is teaching a class."

Many of the comments made on RateMyProfessor.com contain messages from angry students who talk badly about their former professors. If there are only a few comments total made about a professor and they happen to be negative, they weigh the whole rating of that professor negatively.

Professor James Vanden Bosch, chair of the English department, said that the anger of some of these comments must be taken into account when looking at the entries.

"Some students do want to settle grudges with professors, and they do it that way," he explained.

Vanden Bosch stated that he has "very little confidence in what's really there" on the Web site.

A few years ago, Vanden Bosch posted a comment on his own board proudly boasting that he was "young, svelte, beautiful and walked with a cat-like grace." He did this in order to show that "there's absolutely no control over who adds information to the site."

"How much can you trust the numbers and information you find on this site when there's no control over who's making these assessments?" he asked.

"First, there's no guarantee that the people filling out these forms have even had this professor. Second, you can't tell if a student is just settling a grudge or giving an objective evaluation. And finally, you don't see the larger context of where this particular encounter between a professor and a student occurred."

Anyone, whether on campus or not, can contribute to the Web site as long as they have a Calvin e-mail address.

"I just don't trust it. Especially if people's lives are on the line - getting a job, being re-appointed, going to tenure - too much is at stake from my point of view to give the RateMyProfessor stuff any credibility at all," Vanden Bosch said. Facts like these make the comments on RateMyProfessor much more serious than just having fun or students venting over an unfair grade.

"The information gathered by deans and the college in general when it does course evaluations will be a much more reliable way to get that kind of information such as numbers and comments," he said.

The professor evaluations the college gives out have more information on the student evaluator, such as class status, GPA and whether the class fits into the student's major program or is a college requirement. It is therefore more accurate to base information off of.

"RMP.com doesn't have any nuance of that sort on it," Vanden Bosch said.

"Most professors realize that Calvin students want their professors to succeed, so they are patient, kind, generous, and willing to give the benefit of the doubt. But if the professor consistently does things that make the students unhappy or unable to get their work done well, the students will be very frank in saying what the professor is doing wrong or ineffectively. Students try hard to give good, honest, constructive answers. This is what usually happens on course evaluations," Vanden Bosch said.

Biology professor Anding Shen had never heard of the Web site or the student ratings, but thought that it's "good to have somewhere for students to express feelings, comments, and concerns." And she thinks that it can be a helpful tool for students wanting to do a little research on professors before signing up for classes.

She believes that the site is a "more accurate portrayal of how students feel about professor, not the professor themselves."

Shen got her student evaluations back about two weeks ago, and found that the comments there were similar to the ones found at her rating on RateMyProfessor.com.

"If I see comments earlier in the semester and get feedback from students, I can help them more," she said. "[I look for] anything I can improve on using constructive criticism, instead of having students say 'she's a bad teacher' or 'I didn't learn anything'."

"You can usually tell if there are one or two tirades," Hannink said, "and you can also tell the ones that have a lot of thought put into them and have a good understanding of the professors. The more ratings there are for a prof, the easier it is to tell what students actually think, as opposed to one or two people who didn't like the professor."

She acknowledged that "everything on the Internet should be taken with a grain of salt, and you should be able to tell if someone is just out to blow off steam."

"As long as people can use RateMyProfessor, they will," Vanden Bosch said. He doesn't think that the site should be wiped out, but hopes that students will be able to make the distinction between rumors, ill-will, or a grudge being settled, and good, solid, substantial information.

"It's really hard to make those distinctions based on what you see on RateMyProfessor."