Ryan ChartrandStudents can see how teachers grade their classes thanks to the college information Web site Pick-A-Prof.com. The site allows students to research their professors through reviews and their grading history.
The site receives its information directly from a university’s official records and reports the percentages of each letter grade a teacher has awarded in his or her classes.
Pick-A-Prof has only recently expanded to include the majority of California universities because of the UC Regent’s and CSU system’s opposition to turning over the grading records. In May 2006, the Web site won their legal battle and the school systems were given a writ of mandate for refusing to disclose what the court deems public information.
Pick-A-Prof is the only Web site to make the teachers’ records and information accessible to the students.
“I think that students are underestimated; they are there for the education,” said Karen Bragg, director of university relations at Pick-A-Prof. “Students know that if they don’t learn what they need to know in Spanish 101, then they wont be able to move on to the next level. They are not there for the easy A’s.”
The site also boasts about 10,000 student reviews on teachers and courses. Every review submitted is looked over by Pick-A-Prof employees prior to posting to ensure there is not any profanity or personal attacks. This new network will rival the older professor-rating site Polyratings.com that has been posting Cal Poly reviews since January 1999.
“In my opinion as an instructor, it’s a little disheartening that anxiety of grades has become more important than what you are going to learn,” said English professor Sadie Martin. “My education is about my students, but these sites have made it about me. It makes me wonder what my students have seen or read about me before they even enter the classroom.”
The site, created in April 2000, is rapidly increasing in popularity with the addition of the California public schools and because of its partnership with the facebook social network three months ago. Students with a facebook account can now log on through the Pick-A-Prof site and select options through their privacy settings for their facebook friends to view their class schedules. This option makes getting classes with friends as easy as viewing their profile page.
“If you are going to base all of your class decisions solely on what grades teachers administer, you are not going to get ahead. There is more to be said about how a professor teaches than the grades they award,” said industrial engineering junior Erica Janoff.
The number of universities included on the site is constantly growing, but not all U.S. campuses are available yet.
“We expand based on student interest. A lot of time goes into adding a new university to our system so we want to make sure that the students will find it valuable,” Bragg said.
Along with the social networking, schedule planning and teacher information Pick-A-Prof is a one-stop shop for buying college textbooks. Users can search book titles to find price details from major book Web sites, like Half.com and Amazon.com, to compare and get the best deal. Students looking to sell books can also log on to find fellow students on their campus who wish to purchase, eliminating the bookstore middleman.