As Elissa Terach prepared to register for the spring 2015 semester, she looked for classes taught only by the best professors. To find them, she used an online resource that has become popular among college students: Rate My Professors.

Rate My Professors is an online database of professors throughout the country, where students can rate the professors they’ve had in the past. They are rated on a scale of one to five in three categories: helpfulness, clarity and easiness. In addition, students can post written reviews to accompany their ratings.

The site is a large factor in how Terach, a sophomore majoring in psychology, has built her schedule every semester since she began attending Binghamton University.

“I looked at what classes I needed, and if there were options for the professor, I looked at all of them and weighed that in combination with the time that it would be,” Terach said.

If she needed to choose between a convenient time and a good professor, Terach said, she would sign up for the course with the best-rated professor.

However, though the site may be helpful, it should not be trusted blindly. According to computer science professor Dennis Foreman, some of his negative reviews were written by students who did not like him personally.

“Good students just say they liked a course, poor students complain about the work,” he wrote in an email.

Foreman explained that on his profile, he has found lies about grading and assignments, misrepresentations about course content as well as comments that target his physical appearance.

Ann Merriwether, a professor of psychology and human development, agreed, saying that oftentimes students’ reviews stemmed from personal preference instead of objective ratings.

“I have looked at it just to see the numbers, but I have never read the comments on me,” Merriwether said. “They can get pretty personal. I looked at other professors’ comments and was fairly shocked.”

Despite this criticism, hundreds of BU students continue to use the site. Joseph Morrissey, a psychology professor who has been reviewed nearly 1,000 times, said that it gives students the opportunity to share their perspectives.

“I know that administrators at every level in the University pay attention to such comments when deciding on promotions,” Morrissey said. “Students should be encouraged to participate in such evaluative procedures.”

Donald Nieman, provost and executive vice president for academic affairs, however, said that he does not find the site to be reliable and discourages students from using it. He said that University sanctioned Student Opinion of Teaching surveys (SOOTs) were far more used — and trusted.

“SOOTs typically have high response rates and give a much more accurate sense of student opinion of faculty teaching,” Nieman wrote in an email. “As a result, faculty use SOOTs to make improvements in their classes, and we use them as part of our review of faculty for tenure and promotion.”

Merriwether agreed that the surveys were a better gauge of teacher feedback, because of the percentage of students giving their opinion.

“I get over 90% of the class to complete them so you get students who loved the class, hated the class and everyone in between,” Merriwether said. “I don’t generally look at RMP at all. I just checked it, and a total of 217 students have rated me. I have over 500 this semester alone and over 300 students every semester so 217 is not going to be very representative of the literally thousands of students I’ve taught here.”

Lori Greenblatt, a sophomore majoring in history who uses the site to research her professors, said that she prefers to supplement the information by speaking to other people who have had them before.

“I used it like crazy when making my scheduling decisions for next semester but also asked people who had taken other history classes what they thought of professors,” Greenblatt said. “I trust people that I know more than [I trust] the website.”