Student evaluation of teaching is ubiquitous to teaching in colleges and universities around the world. Since the implementation of student evaluations in the 1970s in the US, considerable research has been devoted to their appropriate use as a means of judging the effectiveness of teaching. The present article aims to (1) examine the evidence for the reliability, validity, and utility of student ratings; (2) provide seven guidelines for ways to identify effective instruction, given that the purpose of student evaluation is to assess effective teaching; and (3) conclude with recommendations for the integration of student ratings into the continuous evaluation of veterinary medical education.