Reviews of professor Ariel VanLeuven

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Dr. VanLeuven has a vibrant personality and knows what she's talking about. However, she's a tough grader and isn't very clear with what she wants. She often lectures too deeply and doesn't specify what material is important. When she answers questions, she goes a little too in-depth. Great professor, but extremely tough.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. VanLeuven is nice, but she's a nightmare when it comes to grading. She grades heavily on minor details, and will take many points off throughout tests for not including small details that the question doesn't even ask for. The material was interesting, and I managed an A-, but she made the class very frustrating.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. VanLeuven is super nice and a fairly good lecturer. Bio at this school is harder than necessary in general, so I can't really fault her for the difficulty. The test average is usually a C+, mainly because the tests are awful, not because the content is hard. Just try your best, and good luck!

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Take any other professor if you care about your GPA.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Dr. VanLeuven is a super nice person and one of the best professors I've had-- she really cares about each student and helping them succeed. She is a little too harsh about her feedback when it comes to quizzes, tests, and writing assignments though. She often takes off points but doesn't explain why. She's challenging, but helps you grow so much!

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Dr. VanLeuven is an okay teacher but her grading is incredibly harsh. She refuses to give a 100 on assignments even when all criteria are met. She always seems to look for things to take off points for. The tests aren't extremely difficult but the grading makes it hard to do well even if you put in a lot of time and use all the resources available.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Definitely one of the nicer bio professors, but that doesn't detract from the fact that Bio here is unnecessarily difficult, and the average test grade is a C. Since the Bio department uses the same test, I would advise taking a professor who knows what will be on it, because Dr. V has her own expectations for the exam and it doesn't always align.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Dr. VanLeuven is not a bad professor, but her grading makes it extremely difficult to do well. She's nice and approachable, nonetheless. My advice is to just study as best as you can and hope there's not a lot of matching on the tests, because those are always awful. She is also harsh on writing, but just follow her advice for the final paper.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I took Dr. VanLeuven's course in my first ever semester of college. But even though I wasn't a bio major or a pre-med student, I enjoyed the class (as much as a humanities major can)! Dr. VanLeuven was readily available and always willing to help. Her PowerPoints were the only real material you needed to pass, and she posted them online after class