Wake Up, Babe, a New Course Review Just Dropped

On March 3, three Association of Amherst Students (AAS) senators, Joanne Opoku ’28, Olivia Salai ’28, and Max Froomkin '28, launched the Amherst College Internal Course Review System (ACICRS), aiming to provide a more reliable alternative for the widely criticized platform Rate My Professors. 

Opoku and Salai circulated their pitch on Dec. 5. They highlighted some of Rate My Professor’s shortcomings, including the insufficient number of reviews for Amherst-taught courses and misinformation about some classes’ difficulty levels. 

When asked about his experience using the platform, Cody Pierce ’26 remarked: “Rate My Professor is a suboptimal resource for Amherst College students. At least half of Amherst professors are not included in the system, but if they are, you would be lucky to see more than two student reviews.” 

“The interface is not amazing. Some professors aren’t on there, and lots of reviews are from years ago or from different schools.” Pierce expressed that “this can be unreliable as a professor’s curriculum or their general persona could have changed significantly since the time of review.”  

In their Dec. 5 email to students, Opoku and Salai said that they “are working on creating an internal course review system designed by students and for students.” Following this statement, Opoku and Salai sent out a Google Form to determine what questions and coverage students would like to see on the website. 

Though ultimately successful in their endeavor, Opoku and Salai faced significant pushback in the project’s early phases. Opoku recounts that there was “hesitation” to create the site in the first place. “In the general interest form for the site, I got some feedback saying ‘this is a stupid idea’ or ‘just let this idea die,’” she said. “I got a lot of retaliation from senators, and no help from Information Technology (IT) (they said I would have to do it alone when I reached out), and even some scares - as a previous course review system some years ago got taken down for targeting black female professors, and I did not want history to repeat itself.”

Salai also remarked on the initial hesitation and disregard, but she said she was “really glad the three of us were able to get ACICRS off the ground before course selection came around,” despite the setbacks.

Finally, on March 3, ACICRS went live. The homepage enables students to browse reviews by department, submit their own anonymous course and professor reviews, and search for specific professors and/or courses. 

Froomkin, excited about the website’s popularity, said, “We just hit 200 reviews, and I'm hoping it’ll only ramp up!”

Student feedback is generally positive. “ACICRS seems like a great way to ensure that all students (including non-majors) in a department and first years are given the chance to reveal their true opinions [and]to find out which professors are exciting to learn from and what classes have impacted previous students the most,” Camilla Lash ’27 said.

When asked about the future of the ACICRS, Opoku hopes to integrate it into course review surveys administered to all students at the end of every semester. “More generally, I hope there will be more support given to students who want to make long-lasting projects,” she added.

Salai expressed a similar enthusiasm. “I’m proud that ACICRS refocuses course evaluations on the quality of learning and instruction (as opposed to Rate My Professor’s emphasis on grades),” she said. “I’m also super proud of Joanne, Max, and me for starting something that will live on long past our Senate careers and continue to benefit Amherst students after we graduate!”