ATLANTA — RateMyStudents.com, a site that allows professors to rate and assess their students, has attracted major attention from employers and recruiters alike.
Nearly 18 years after founding RateMyProfessors.com, John Swapceinski decided to reverse the concept by allowing professors to openly critique or praise their students on his newest site.
“A couple of professor friends of mine — I know, funny I have any after starting RateMyProfessors — they were telling me, ‘John’ I wish we had a way to voice our side of things,” said Swapceinski. “That’s when a lightbulb went on.”
Within days of being launched, professors from universities across the nation have quickly provided reviews of thousands of students.
“I spend about as much time rating my students as I do grading papers,” said one professor, who preferred to remain anonymous. “Did you know there’s even a hotness rating?”
In addition to giving teachers a medium to provide an indirect response through, human resources experts estimate RateMyStudents.com will potentially save companies millions of dollars through smarter hiring decisions. RMS will enable these companies to find the right employees and retain them for longer.
“Now instead of just looking at a resume, which is obviously gonna be biased, we can just see what their professors had to say about them,” said Velma Wilson, an HR specialist at Google.
RateMyStudents.com has not launched without controversy, however. While many students have received favorable reviews, some believe the site may hurt their job prospects upon graduating. In fact, a number of students have attempted to have RMS taken down.
“One of my professors literally wrote this about me: ‘He seems to have trouble grasping concepts’ — not a concept, but concept(s),” said University of Georgia senior Alec Smithson.
Another wrote, ‘I know they say there are no stupid questions, but there are, and he’s exhibit A.’”
Smithson is among those trying to have RateMyStudents.com removed, but the effort looks unlikely to succeed, given that it will be protected under the same freedoms that have allowed RateMyProfessor to flourish.
“I guess these delicate little millennial snowflakes can dish it out, but can’t take it. I’m melting, I’m melting,” said Duke University professor of psychology Fitch Trendler mockingly. “Now it’s our time to rate.”
