University of Phoenix Online
4
I am a new Graduate student at U of P, and have several points to make about the folks posting about the University. I have seen several common theme in all the complaints I read while researching the school to make my decision. The first and most common, is that many of you are complaining about having to "repeat courses", you are not repeating courses that you transfer from a community college, you are in fact taking a higher level of course to fulfill the upper-division requirements that accrediting associations require of all schools. These courses --- 300-400 level classes are not offered at the community college level, as they are not a university. Also, many of you complain about the school "stealing" your money when you do not receive a refund for dropping out of a class. No university will offer you a full refund unless you drop the next day or within a predetermined number of days, and most schools will give you 0$ refund after two weeks--- This is every school at every level in the country. I also see people complaining about grades they have earned, most of those people can hardly spell, and can not even manage to create a complete sentence. This is a school thats primarily based on writing papers to demonstrate what you have learned. If you have learned nothing, you are likely to struggle with assessments. If you are not capable of putting together a complete sentence, or at least faking it, you probably won't be successful. The biggest issue I hear folks complaining about is accreditation. The school has the same accreditation as the school I earned my BS from, that school is well respected and provided me with an excellent education. Further, it is not necessarily true, at may be true for MBA programs, where you would be discriminated anyway unless you come from the IV league schools anyway, no matter what school you went to. I am in the Masters in Teaching program, and my research from calling multiple state certification departments, and multiple school districts has produced nothing but positive reviews, and affirmation of the quality of the degrees reputation. They all told me that it's not only accepted for credentialing inb those three state that I called, but the Human resources people in the individual districts all told me that they view its as good as any other degree, that "a masters degree, is a masters degree" when it comes to universities that are accredited. In addition, I have found that employers consider graduates of the program to be "highly qualified" based on life experiences, the type of "writing" education UofP demands, and the overall requirements of the program which far exceeds the type of educational experiences students may receive at other universities.
The reason I'm taking the time to write this is because I spent many, many hours reading these message boards, and using other resources to evaluate the quality and value of the university, and I always come to the same findings---- The degree's are accepted and viewed by professionals and organizations as being equal to or in some cases better (depending on the program) than typical on campus schools. So, if you're reading this post because your searching for info to validate the university, I suggest YOU DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH, AND DON'T MAKE DECISIONS BASED ON THE POST OF PEOPLE ON THE INTERNET....... Some of the people have little or no experience or idea of what to expect from a school. Many people in life, and at schools have different expectations from life than you. Read some of these post, and you will see that many of the people posting are not the brightest people on earth. I have earned 2 degrees from through three different "traditional" universities, they were all different, all had there strong/weak points, and all had the same accreditation as the UofP. I work for the Federal Government, and have work for various state agencies with that same accreditation, it's solid, and employers feel the same way. Good luck in your search, I hope you find what you're looking for, and are happy with the choices you will make.