Students across campus have spent the last few days pouring over a wrinkled purple catalog, tugging at the corners of red eyes that have not seen much sleep.

Overwhelming lines of tiny black letters and numbers stretch across the white page like marching ants. ECO 310—Intermediate Macro Theory 14767, JCM 395—A Media Law and Ethics 15286. Each class choice speaks of all-nighters and tears.

Some students have barely survived this semester’s class load and now they must commit themselves to another four months of studying misery.

If lucky, they will find that perfect match — a requirement for their major that is offered at two different afternoon times and does not conflict with anything else in the crossed out, scribbled and strongly erased tentative schedules they’ve agonized over.

They actually have a choice between two classes and are ready to take the next step. They need to look up each professor on ratemyprofessors.com.

Ratemyprofessors.com is the new American Idol for teachers. It spans across America and you vote, yes you vote, and you decide who will be the country’s next highest-rated college professor.

More than 6.8 million students rate their professors, making the Web site the Internet’s largest listing of collegiate professor ratings. Students have finally found a way to grade their professors, and offer advice and warnings to searching students. The site provides ratings of professors from more than 6,000 schools in the United States, England, Canada, Scotland and Wales.

Many are familiar with the idioms and conventions of the Web site. A yellow smiley face indicates a stellar professor choice. A sallow, green face indicates of a mediocre lecturer; and the most dreaded, blue unhappy face warns of a really horrendous semester. A mediocre green can be quickly remedied by the presence of a red pepper. Even if the class is boring, at least the teacher is attractive.

Recently, ratemyprofessors.com came out with the 2007 Top 50 lists of highest rated and hottest college professors. Eastern Michigan University’s Robert Citino holds the prestigious honor of the highest rated professor of the nearly 1 million professors rated on the Web site.

“It’s pretty hard to wrap my mind around it,” Citino told ratemy professor.com. “It’s a big country, and I’m not even sure I’m the best professor in Michigan, or even in the town of Ypsilanti, where I live.”

Citino, a history professor, just came out with his eighth book and is a huge Radiohead fan. Other EMU colleagues were supportive of Citino’s success.

“A lot of them have been kidding me good-naturedly holding the door for me when I enter the room and such, but they seem genuinely pleased,” he said.

Citino believes students’ ratings are valid and are significant.

“They are, after all, the ones who experience teachers most directly, and their opinions need to be heard,” he said.

There are many who question the legitimacy of professor ratings. They see ratemyprofessors.com as an outlet for bitter students who didn’t like their grade in a class.

People who think this are the dreaded blue-face professors. One irate and immature student can give a bad review, but this one unfair rating doesn’t account for the 10 other posts that concertedly agree.

Advice to these badly rated professors is simple. Realize that if you’re getting bad reviews then you’re doing something wrong.

It takes a lot more than the apathetic user to give a low rating and take the time to make paragraph long dire warnings.

If a comment reads “GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN,” maybe the professor needs to step back and reflect on why their classes are avoided like the plague.While ratemyprofessors.com may ruffle some professorial feathers, it should be heeded by students and teachers alike.

Columnist: Margeaux Corby - 11/07/07