I f you haven’t used it, you know someone who has. Sacrate.com is a popular forum by which students can investigate the reputation of Sacramento State teachers as reviewed by their peers. This is how it works: Sac State students search for any teacher from a long and impressive list alphabetized by last names.

Each student review is anonymous to the reader and critiques the teachers in three basic areas: their teaching style (subjectively rated at the highest as “exceptional” to the lowest, “terrible”), whether or not the teacher has a cumulative final and the difficulty level of the course work assigned. After those basic assessments, the student gets to write comments about his or her experience with the teacher.

These commentaries vary from complimentary to constructive to down right mean. Sacrate, with its guise of anonymity, exposes what students really feel about the professors on this campus.

Jennifer Hildebrand, a senior majoring in International Relations has had similar experiences with the website.

She says, “With the array of comments on Sacrate, I can usually find some students who feel the same was about a professor that I do. It makes me feel better that I am not the only student out there that feels that way.”

Speaking of feeling a “certain way” about professors here at Sac State, these are a few of my favorite student critiques:

“This guy is a dick. Retire already!”

“Al-Qaeda was invented for Americans like this!”

“A real yawnfest. This draft dodger coward makes Clinton look like a medal of honor winner.”

“God, how many times was I so annoyed in her class wanting to either cut myself or scream: “shut the f@%# up!!!!!”

At best, I would say that Sacrate.com is a fun Web site to look up on a rainy day, but as a credible source, by which students should take to heart the critiques and teacher assessments, I think it is about reliable as a junior high Slam Book. Similarly, any student can review any teacher and each review is anonymous to the reader of those reviews.

The fact that all critiques are anonymous creates a moral hazard for students to be more reckless with their word choice and attack professors more than assess them. I think of the student who showed up four times to the class the whole semester, failed the class with the bitter last words that: “the teacher hated him….”

“I think Sacrate can be a useful resource,” said Sheena Murray, a senior double majoring in Economics and Government says. “But you have to filter out the ratings of the bitter students in order to find the most helpful commentary.”

Sacrate gives reviews based on student assumptions of what makes a great professor and our assumptions vary radically. The teachers who seek to challenge their students, stretch their comfort zones and require hard work out of them will be crucified on the Web site while the teachers who do not take role, hand out extra-credit and makes their final exam optional are the teachers who will receive praise, popularity and full classes every semester.

“Sacrate.com has a high entertainment value, but I don’t trust the accounts of other students regarding what professors to take,” said Holly Reason, a senior majoring in Government-Journalism. “Usually, students give favorable ratings to easy graders, and that is not what I look for in making my choices.”

Sacrate is a publicly accessible Web site that teachers have access to. And unfortunately the very nature of reviewing a teacher, more often than not, is in light of a negative experience with one. So no matter how great the teacher is, there are usually a disproportionate number of negative reviews as compared to the number of students who appreciated taking the teacher’s class.

“If students take it seriously, it can be an excellent way to provide information to other students about whether or not they should take that class,” (said Assistant Professor Patrick Cannon teaches courses at Sac State for both undergraduate and graduate). “But if students don’t take it seriously and just criticize the personal qualities of the professor rather than the substance of the course, then it probably is not very helpful.”

Sacrate is a good idea, but far from perfect. Unless you are the kind of person that goes to the writings on the bathroom stalls for sex advice, don’t go here for teacher advice. Take the reviews with a grain of salt and leave the anonymous critiques on the Web site and enter the classroom of those teachers with an open mind, they just might surprise you.

Austin Phillips can be reached at [email protected]