Yes, he tries to make lectures entertaining but he is a horrible teacher. If you are a complete genius at math then take him, but if math isn't your thing you will seriously be in trouble because his tests are hard. Some of the questions on there aren't even in the assigned homework, he pulls them out of no where! I wish I would have known how bad he was before I signed up for his class. He talks extremely fast and writes chicken scratch on the black board during his lectures (when he doesn't use his slides). If you already signed up for his class my advice to you is to read up on the lectures before class and print out the slides and bring to class, or you will be completely lost and just zone out (I would also recommend recording his lectures because they aren't on podcast and he goes very, very fast). Bottom line: if you have a hard time with math don't take him but if you are a genius take him.

He may be funny and entertaining, but he is the worst professor I've had. He doesn't explain things clearly- there's really no point going to class (I went to all of them). If you go to his office hours, he tells you the same thing he did in lecture- not at all helpful! He uses made up terms like "ESSE" and is extremely difficult to follow. Nandy may have a thick accent, but he's preferable to Mcauliffe.

He really isn't as bad as people say he is. He tries to make the lectures entertaining, and he does explain things well. The key is to do all the review problems he posts online and look at his website, you can just ignore the textbook, I sold it back the first day of class. The midterms are very similar to the questions he posts online, especially the fill in the blank portion, it's pretty much the same. If you've taken a Stats class before this, the class shouldn't be that difficult.

This professor is not nearly as bad as they say he is. He's actually really straight forward. I thought Stats is a pretty dry subject, but Mcauliffe tried to help as much as possible. If I can pull off a solid A in his class, anyone that has even the slightest interest and an hour a day could do it. Even though I didn't like the subject, it was pretty easy to study for. I studied 4 hours a week and 2 hours before each midterm/final and that was it! I studied close to double for my calc class and I couldn't even pull off a B minus... so that tells you something.

So after reading these reviews, i went into the class with the mentality that this teacher would be the biggest pain in the ass ever. but honestly if you are a premed at ucla, this will probably one of the easier classes you take. the material is not hard, its just that he makes you memorize all the ridiculous formulas.sure he doesn't really care about his students and wont go out of his way to help you learn, but the material is easy enough for you to learn by yourself. i was on the verge of dropping this class 8th week, but they didn't let me so i studied my tush off for the final and did surprisingly well. so it is possible! i found going to lectures was useless, instead spend that time going over the lecture slides. i started doing better when i stopped going to lecture

Like most people say, he's a nice person but he's a terrible teacher. He skips steps (which shouldn't be the case in a math class), and if you've never taken stats before (like me) nothing makes sense and reading the book on your own gets really hard after the first midterm (which wasn't too bad). I ended up dropping the course though because of a scheduling conflict and took it with Nandy, who is really boring but much more thorough when he teaches and his tests are way easier.

I got an A in this class, so it's doable, but don't expect to enjoy yourself in this class. He is a really, really bad teacher. There are tons of mistakes in his power point presentations and the lectures are very difficult to follow. I didn't go to class all that much because the only way I learned was to sit at home and look through all the material and do the review questions and problems on my own.
A good thing is that he does help you a lot by posting the stuff you need to know online and gives you review questions etc. The questions on the exams are very similar to the review questions so make sure to do them all and memorize/understand them. For the first mid-term it really helps if you have taken a stats class before like I had.

I got an A on both of my midterms,
never went to class after the first week
and expecting an A from this class.
I normally nevery miss a lecture in my
other classes, but for this man,
PLEASE do study by yourself. Either
he does not know how to teach, or
have seriously problem sticking to an
academic subject. He keeps talking
about unrelated topics which stopped me from going to class the first week.
How to do well without going to class: 1. Take atleast 3 hours on monday when
the lecture slides are posted to go over what he'll go over during class.
2. spend 1 hour on friday to see if you still remember those materials
3. when the practice problems are posted DO THEM the second he post them
4. to study for finals, all you need to do is REDUE the practice problems
5. Memorize the questions on the practice problems and the answers to them
6. ON the actual midterm, READ the questions, b/c he WILL change numbers/words to 1 or 2 problem out of 30.
**afterall, this class is a breeze if you do what i've done.
i've never spent 4 hours a week of studying to get an A in UCLA. (although my grades aren't posted yet... :D)

I absolutely hated this course not because the material, but because McAuliffe is one of the most disorganized and overall horrible professors I've ever had. There is no way you can miss class because you might miss the corrections that he will make IN CLASS to the lecture slides - therefore if you study off the slides alone, you might just be studying THE WRONG THING. Another aspect of the class that I deeply hated was the fact that all of his examples are through that website that you have to pay for in order to access - which sometimes gives erroneous answers to begin with. I think that math needs to be shown step by step, something McAuliffe doesn't do - he skips over things alot without clarifying. I won't take away from the fact that he is probably a nice guy and has a great sense of humor, buy those characteristics don't really have much to do with being an effective professor at all.

I loved McAuliffe, the people who don't like him are just too lazy to put in the effort...the material sucks but that is definitely not his fault. he does want to help and will guide you through the things you don't understand if you take the time to ask him. the class isn't easy but if i were to take it again i would still take it with him!!