Comments on: Pros and Cons of The Art Institute Online

By: Whitney

Whitney — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:26:11 +0000

I was going to attend AI Pittsburgh, on campus, right out of high school, back in 2001. Glad I didnt. I soon realized I was trying to be sold something when I would get 10 mailings a week. Finally in 2006, my parents said the mailings started to die off and they gave up.

Recently I thought to reconsider the online thing and glad I found this. Take a look at the Better Business Beauru (www.bbb.org), or definetly file a complaint against the business if you have one.

I am even surprised to find that the ASID (American Society of Interior Design) has accreditation for this school. And that they think that this college prepares students enough to pass the NCIDQ Examination. I can’t imagine that from the people I have talked to who have pursued AI degrees. From what I gather, AI wants you to think they are a school that could have trained Coco Chanel, when actually they lean toward more of a diploma mill. I’m sure there are positive aspects, but is it a 70-90K gamble I want to take? I think not.

By: Mitzi

Mitzi — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 15:27:03 +0000

Who says AI is one of the best schools? I work in the industry and at my company we consider their degrees useless. We’ll look at the person’s portfolio, but our experience has been that a Bachelor’s from any Art Institute (online or not) means nothing except that the applicant has a lot of debt.

By: michelle

michelle — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 17:00:05 +0000

First of all, i attended AIP and AIPOD and am doing quite well…along with thousands of others who were actually smart enough to go to college. Not only did i go to the school, but i work for the school. No teachers nor advisors do no hold your hand…are you in kindergarden??? do you really need that much help?? we don’t learn for you…we provide the information and if you can’t keep up…maybe you shouldn’t have graduated high school….

AI is NOT accredited by ACICS–we are accredited by the middle states and if you do your research on what accredidation is…is has to do with the location…all of our ground schools have a different accredidation due to state recquirments…retard.

When it comes to financial aid…that is not up to the school…its FEDERAL FINANCIAL AID. it’s determined by the government..if you have a problem of what money you have left over for books or whatever…take it up w/ the government.

we have thousands of students…i guarantee that you could find bad reviews on starbucks…but that doesn’t change your opinion because you have had the experience…so if you had a bad experience…that doesn’t mean its the schools fault. yeah maybe someone dropped the ball…but look up reviews for EVERY college…THEY ALL HAVE BAD REVIEWS…ppl never post good reviews…but when somthing goes bad…of course they post it…so yes, you can view more bad than good.

if you are looking for a cheap school..go to the community college down the street…AI has one of the best program list that is offered…and we are one of the best art schools in the country..how did that happen if we were so bad??

i hope you only apply for the lowest paying jobs or only buy the lowest priced car…that’s what you are doing when you choose schools by the price. and no one is making you go to school here…you are going on your free will…there is nothing unethical…you request information…you get the information and then if you show interest..we call back…until we reach you again…if you never say that you are not intereted…we continue to think that we just can’t reach you…and if you are that upset over callings…PUT YOUR NAME ON THE DO NOT CALL LIST—GOOGLE IT…oh and also…don’t put your phone number and ADDRESS online…what do you think is gonna happen?? do you really think Obama is sending you money?? or your getting a free xbox??? or free money?? NOTHING IS FREE!! and if you don’t know that you shouldn’t be allowed into college…cause you are DUMB!!! quite complaining…i’m sure you’ve had bad jobs in your life…or your parents smacked you around when you were a kid…you aren’t puttin a lawsuit on them…your being childish and need to seriously grow up…

By: Yuki

Yuki — Wed, 19 May 2010 19:36:19 +0000

Ai, honestly I used to think it was the greatest college there was since they tried recuiting so much at my high school.
But the truth is theres only a handfull of good teachers in all of their schools. Yes it would have been worth it if they had more than just a small handfull of good and decent teachers that were direct with comunication. So I ended up leaving the AI after two semesters since I knew that it wasn’t worth my time. But last december I was having to look at schools just for a single online class to learn maya.
Since I was taught in XSI; from the school I switched to after AI.
And to top it off it had to be online. So I ended up calling the AI of pittsburgh online divsion.
They shoved me into filling an aplication and even made me dish out 50 dollars of my own money that they even won’t refund when it was a mistake; and when I when get it refunded they didn’t they kept it.
Then the following months leaving voice mails on my cell still trying to get me to finsh the aplication, even though I told them I’m not intrested I found another place.
honestly their like those car salesman that won’t leave you alone at all.
That’s what the online division was like for me. I even reported it to their head of admiisons, No response so either gotten blocked or ignored.

And to top it off. The Admmisons people most of them act nice- but when they call you to follow up on trying to coax you to finsh signing your life away for online classes. They just turn in complete jerks, that to be quite frank.

They just want to dish out money not really caring about how you will do in the long run. As long as it goes in their pocket.

If someones reading this thats looking into any feild at ai please just look at a diffrent school, yes AI has a large network but long run, but not alot of good comes out of that college.

By: Melissa

Melissa — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 00:38:23 +0000

I have recently started attending AIO around 7 weeks ago. I am enrolled in the Web Design and Interactive Media Bachelors Degree. I am currently only able to do 1 class every 6 weeks will in turn take about 6 yrs to complete even with transfer credits from previous college work. After reading all the negative reviews on numerous sites I feel that this college is definitely not the one for me or the one to increase my knowledge in the web development field. I already have previous knowledge so I was hoping on a college that would build on that but so far it seems most people really learned nothing different than what they came in with. The course work so far is dumb and anyone with half a brain could do it. Also, I feel that its more or less teaching yourself instead of a teacher actually teaching you which $85,000 is so not worth. I’m guessing thats one reason the admission guy would never tell me the complete tuition each time I asked him..it was always don’t worry about it ur fiinancial aid will cover it. Even tho it didnt and im expected to pay about $150 every 6 weeks. The main reason I’m withdrawing and finding education elsewhere is the price. There are other online schools with tuition half that and probably more worth it. I don’t want to waste all my financial aid on 1 college and end up getting a worthless piece of paper in the end. I will say AIO will do anything to get u in. they even waived my application fee becuz i had to wait until i got paid to finish it so they waived it just to get me in which at the time i saw as weird. Even looking at their student gallery in web design half of it looks like crap and I can design better pages than that with the intermediate knowledge I do have. My advice to anyone looking to go to college online is definately shop around and check out tuition rates.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 02:28:15 +0000

It’s not really about bad reviews, you can get those through any college, it’s what you get for the price you pay. The Associates graphic design programs at local colleges here run about 8-10k for the WHOLE program. Online is convenient, but you have to decide if the debt you incur is worth it in the long run, and whether or not a salary you might get is going to be enough to pay back those loans and live at the same time. Last I looked, art majors were not paid all that high.

If you are not paying your tuition, or get a GI bill, go for it, other wise I’d think twice, but then people dream about doing what they love, so is it that different than getting a bachelors in German or romantic literature? In this economy, it’s about the same.

By: anonymousss

anonymousss — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 04:35:37 +0000

I’ve read all the reviews and all the negative comments and have found few good ones. I have applied to this school and I will be telling them that I accept their plans and will be attending online.
I see it like this, everyone has a bad review about money and about how much this school costs, but ALL colleges cost. Art colleges are more than your average community college and basic degrees. Some complain about having to pay for books. You have to pay for books at EVERY college.
Some talk about how there facilitators didn’t treat them the way that they should have and the like, but this is online. If you want to be taught by teachers, then online probably isn’t for you. You are going to have to teach yourself.
I do understand the complaints about older ways in teaching and some students not being good at certain things, but even if it is old, you learn. Everyone gets in WITHOUT having a full portfolio. They are giving people with the passion for the subject the chance, where if you went somewhere else they would deny them just because they don’t have a portfolio.
You can’t have things fed to you. And when they bill you the FIRST time, keep a receipt saying you paid it and you wouldn’t have as much a problem.

Also, out of how many negative comments there are, think about how many people haven’t commented on their wonderful experiences. One of the reasons their are few positive reviews is because those with good experiences haven’t come across all these negatives, they don’t need to search reviews.

By: anon

anon — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 05:25:33 +0000

I’ve been in class for over a year now and i haven’t had these problems yet. I can see how it would look like they don’t care but I am glad to say alot has changed in the since06. I went in knowing that nothing was ever handed to me and it def. was easy coming up, why should school be any different. but then again ask me a couple months ago and i might have said different. Its like anything if you quit before you finish its always a regret.

By: ANon

ANon — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:53:38 +0000

Here’s an example of my first experience at AIO. The teacher continually graded my papers erroneously. When I would point it out- here’s a few different times. I paid 1300 bucks to be talked to like this by the “professor” who happened to admit she’s a drinker and likes her wine at night. Great.

1)Oh, I found it. I don’t know what I was thinking but I was looking for you in the wrong class.

2)I am not seeing a post from you on that assignment. Are you sure that you did post it?

3)I don’t grade the assignments when I write responses. I don’t criticize or tell students what they did wrong or are missing in those responses. You can read the grading criteria for each of the assignments to see what you are missing, and I hope that you do this for the remaining assignments of the class. No, I am not going to increase your grade because you did not meet the assignment criteria.

I can’t help but notice that you have argued grades for every single week of class so far. If you put the same time and effort into reading the directions for the assignments carefully that you do in arguing your case for grade increases you may see an improvement in your scores.

She didn’t like her job and barely barely did Anything. When you asked her something she either ignored you or snapped at you. Very unprofessional and even less concerned about the students she was rollin in dough to “teach”. If this was a daycare I’d call CPS.

By: VaNessa

VaNessa — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 08:03:15 +0000

I just “graduated” from AIO in December and I am still waiting to receive my Design Diploma. I’m not going to say that my experience was bad BUT it totally could have been better and yes, this school rapes you for money. My only complaints are that the teachers don’t teach but just simply monitor the classroom, some of the classes were outdated and repetitive, and it’s way expensive! Also, my goodness, there were an overabundance of horrible “designers” that would produce terrible work to where my 2 year old could have done better and yet the teacher would comment and say that it looks great. I still can’t get over that one. I often wondered how they are passing their classes or even how they got accepted into the school.

That being said, this was the most perfect school for me. At the time I was a stay at home Mommy and this allowed me to “attend” class whenever I wanted letting me work around my daughter’s schedule without having to put her in childcare.

Here’s the thing though, this school is not for everyone. It’s for people who can teach themselves and learn on their own. It’s for people that are passionate and already have artistic abilities/talent. If you are someone who needs their hand held and one on one time with a teacher I would strongly advise you to not attend this school.