Web Spy: CourseRank

By Laura Dondero

[There are over 100 million sites on the Internet. 100 million! You might think you know about all the important ones (CollegeCandy, Gmail, Google, Facebook…), but there are thousands of other sweet sites out there (like GoFobo, FashionStake, and Philo) and more showing up every day! We get it – it’s not easy or fun sifting through the crap and porn to find those gems, so we’re gonna bring the gems to you. Just sit back, kick up those feet and allow us to introduce you to the diamonds in the internet rough.]

The end of the semester is just a few short weeks away, but there are still a few hurdles left to cross over before winter break: finals and class registration.

Finals are definitely a huge source of stress for me, but I don’t think anything stresses me out as much as registering for next semester’s classes.  I hate the whole process, from trying to find out what classes I need, figuring out where they fit in my schedule, and praying that I’ll get into them.

I’ve recently learned about a site that makes the whole process of registering for classes a lot easier.  Part course bulletin, part review site, CourseRank is a free online tool that helps you plan your schedule.

CourseRank helps save you from the hassle of reading through that huge course bulletin to find a class you want by putting the whole thing online and making it easy to browse.  You can browse by department, course title, term, units, average grade, and average rating (based on user feedback).  CourseRank is also fully searchable, so you can search by keyword to find classes taught by a certain professor or on a particular subject.

Click on a course in your search results to be taken to its review page, which contains full information about the course from the bulletin, as well as ratings, reviews, and grades posted by CourseRank users who have already taken the class.

The ratings feature is one of the best things about CourseRank.  Other users who have already taken a course can anonymously rate the class and the professor, providing you with honest opinions to help you choose which courses to take.

With CourseRank, you can also arrange your semester without having to worry about conflicting time slots by creating a color-coded weekly schedule that you can print out or sync with a calendar program (Google Calendar, iCal, or Outlook).

Another great feature of CourseRank is its easy-to-use planner, which lets you see what classes you’ve already taken along with the ones you plan on taking, helping you plan ahead for the rest of your college career.

It’s unbelievable how awesome CourseRank is—I just can’t believe I’ve gone this long without it!

Check out what other awesome websites have been getting us all hot and bothered.