It’s that time of the year again: pre-registration for spring semester. Seniors are enjoying being able to register early, and freshmen are anxiously checking SeaNet every 30 minutes hoping the classes they want haven’t filled up.

But what do students take into consideration when deciding which classes with what professors to take next semester? Certainly basic studies and major requirements, along with recommendations from their adviser help with their decisions. Some students even use sites that rate professors, such as PickAProf.com and RateMyProfessor.com. PickAProf.com is fairly new; however RateMyProfessor.com has been around for years and is widely known throughout college campuses.

RateMyProfessor.com is a Web site owned by MTV where a student can rate a professor for the benefit of other students who may take a course with that professor. It has ratings for 954 of UNCW’s professors.

The ratings are based on easiness, helpfulness, clarity and rater interest. According to the site, its purpose is to help students plan their class schedules.

Some students, like freshman Sarah Light, do exactly that.

“Yes, I use it, and I actually looked up the well-liked professors for the classes I was thinking of taking next semester. I avoided signing up for classes taught by professors who had sad faces next to their names,” Light said.

The sad face Light is referring to is another way the site rates professors. Beside a professor’s name is either a smiley face, meaning good quality, a serious face, meaning average quality or a sad face, meaning poor quality. There is also a chili pepper beside the professor’s name if they are rated as “hot.”

So what do professors think about sites that sum up their entire career in a smiley, serious, or sad face?

Dr. Lynn Mollenauer, Associate Professor for the Department of History at UNCW said, “The site, it seems to me, is designed not to convey information about how much a student might learn in a class, but about the minimum amount of effort required to pass that class.”

Will Wilkinson, Associate Director for the University Learning Center, said, “I understand that students want to know something about their professors before they take a class, but I advise that they approach RateMyProfessor.com with a bit of skepticism.”

Wilkinson’s skepticism of the site comes from the variety of ratings and comments he has received from one class alone. He said it is important to remember that students have different perspectives on classes and teachers.

Senior Charlin Delorean also feels that way, even though she does use the site.

She said, “I do take into account that one person’s experience with a teacher does not indicate that I’ll have the same experience.”

Professors can get something good out of this site, however, whether they have good or bad ratings.

Mollenauer said about her ratings, “Some of them can be quite funny. It’s always useful to me as a teacher to see how what I’m doing in the classroom is perceived by my students. And, of course, I do want to check that my degree of difficulty score isn’t going down!”